***** Venezuela: Una exégesis filosófica de las posibles chispas emancipatorias
¿Qué es el quo vadis de nuestro PSUV?

Por Franz J. T. Lee

**** Venezuela: A philosophic exegesis of possible emancipatory sparks
What is the quo vadis of our United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)?
By Franz J. T. Lee

**** Cementando la soberanía nacional, con la recuperación de las industrias vitales

**** Medalla de Oro para Vladímir Putin
Por: Heinz Dieterich
Rebelión.

**** Bush dispatches US military forces to Georgia
by Barry Grey.

*** Deutsche Bank Writedowns Exceed $11 Billion

*** War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation?
by Michel Chossudovsky.

**** General Motors cierra su Planta de Valencia

**** Anuncia que una flota militar rusa visitará Venezuela y arremete contra Georgia

**** After Georgia conflict**** Missile agreement with Poland intensifies danger of US-Russian clashBy Patrick Martin

**** Wag the Dog: How to Conceal Massive Economic Collapse

By Ellen Brown.

"I’m in show business, why come to me?"
"War is show business, that’s why we’re here."
– "Wag the Dog" (1997 film).

**** "Marxismo y neoliberalismo son lo mismo"
Francisco Rivero: ¿Filósofo o Profesor de Filosofía?
Por: Aureliano Márquez.

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 ENGLISH VERSION BELOW!

VHEADLINE– TRINICENTER.COM -- CMAQ
http://www.cmaq.net/node/30787
http://www.trinicenter.com/index1.php
http://vheadlinevenezuelaenespanol.blogspot.com/2008/08/venezuela-
una-exgesis-filosfica-de-las.html
Traducido por Jesús Nery Barrios
franzjutta@cantv.net.

25/08/2008

En timpos del engaño sólo decir la verdad es un acto revolucionario.
George Orwell.
Conocereís la verdad y la verdad os hara libres.
Jesucristo.

***** Venezuela: Una exégesis filosófica de las posibles chispas emancipatorias
¿Qué es el quo vadis de nuestro PSUV?

Por Franz J. T. Lee

Una hipótesis argumentada por primera vez por Parménides (540-470 A.C.) de Elea (actualmente Italia), quien como sabemos tuvo una profunda influencia en la filosofía idealista platónica, y por lo tanto en el Cristianismo, ha provocado a lo largo del último milenio una barrera intelectual y temporal cancerosa en los dominios de los verdaderos esfuerzos emancipatorios creativos.  Como en el caso del falso, anti-árabe y anti-africano y racista engaño del 'descubrimiento de América' por Cristóbal Colón la consecuente 'verdad absoluta' lógico-formal se ha convertido en la piedra angular de la progresiva dominación política, se ha vuelto en el más grande engaño ideológico y sistémico de todos los tiempos: Nada viene de la nada, en latín: ex nihilo nihil fit.
En otras palabras, sólo los grandes dioses lo han creado todo, incluso a sí mismos, del nihil, de la Nada, de la Nadeidad.  En consecuencia, no podemos ni debemos entrar al nihil, es el sanctasanctórum; a nivel global los arcángeles de la acumulación de capital nos vigilan, nos guían a través de los verdes prados del esfuerzo, del trabajo laborioso.  Los santos oligarcas se aseguran que no hagamos travesuras con la creación divina.  Como se explica en las Santas Escrituras los creadores del universo están complacidos con su construcción a partir de la Nada, y eso es lo que realmente importa en la alienación capitalista.
En resumen, en Venezuela, en Bolivia, en América Latina, el imperialismo cultural aun nos enseña que no hay escape del proceso universal del trabajo, de la historia explotadora de la clase dominante, de la ira de Jehová, del capitalismo, de la alienación humana.  Mejor deberíamos rendirnos y renunciar a la lucha de clase; como lo predicó Jesucristo, siempre habrá pobres entre nosotros.  Como lo desean los racistas globales, siempre habrán blancos superiores y negros inferiores, trabajadores pobres y capitalistas ricos, en esencia, siempre habrán amos y esclavos.
A lo largo de los últimos milenios esta es la esencia de toda la educación colonial en el Sur.  También en Venezuela y en todas partes muchos de nosotros caemos víctimas de estos trucos e ilusiones ideológicas capitalistas, inocentemente las confundimos con verdaderos actos revolucionarios y emancipatorios.  Así, según la ideología y el reformismo corporativo, el sistema universal cerrado, el orden mundial sólo puede ser cambiado desde adentro, por medio de la evolución y la revolución; alternativamente, lo cual viene a ser lo mismo, el status quo sólo puede mejorarse por medio de interminables oraciones, perdones (por todos los holocaustos mentales y corporales perpetrados por la clase dominante, que ya han devorado cientos de millones de preciosas vidas a lo largo de milenios), genuflexiones, pactos diabólicos secretos a través de relaciones de clase, pactos anti-proletarios entre caballeros, cortes de la verdad, consensos de clase y alianzas traicioneras.  Semejantes recetas reformistas también incluyen: fe eterna, esperanza, amor y caridad; cualquier otra cosa, por ejemplo, creación proletaria, transvolución o exvolución, es equivalente a lo que se conoce como el mal, la tiranía, la dictadura y el terrorismo internacional.  Estos nuevos conceptos que expresan el espíritu emancipatorio de nuestra época apocalíptica ni siquiera aparecen en el horizonte del idioma político y filosófico contemporáneo, el ámbito académico y la vida emancipatoria global.  Por otro lado, nuestro término global y político favorito es 'ideología', su consigna es la formación ideológica y su práctica es organizar talleres de ideología.
Todo esto es burgués, es obsoleto, no sirve para luchar contra la globalización corporativa, no es nuevo, no es innovador; sus vicios capitalistas se remontan a Francis Bacon y Destutt de Tracy.  Marx y Engels ya criticaron "La Ideología Alemana" antes de las revoluciones de 1848 en Europa, y más tarde formularon el "Manifiesto Comunista" para una exégesis humana que nos saque de este valle de lágrimas, hacia la "emancipación humana" (Marx).  Obviamente el propio marxismo tiene que globalizarse urgentemente, actualizarse.  Esto es precisamente lo que estamos haciendo aquí.
En Venezuela, en la época de la globalización, del fascismo global, necesitamos una praxis y una teoría mucho más poderosa que una revolución burguesa, necesitamos lo verdaderamente nuevo, un nuevo hombre (y una nueva mujer) como el mundo jamás ha conocido: necesitamos urgentemente una "exvolución"; un éxodo de la esclavitud capitalista.  Esta es una formidable tarea global, no es un esfuerzo individual o familiar.  Ella necesita de una Cuarta o Ultima Internacional verdaderamente funcional en lo práxico-teórico.
Sin embargo, para proseguir con esta gigantesca tarea transhistórica, necesitaremos una exégesis creativa y creadora, ἐξηγεῖσθαι, es decir, un manifiesto emancipatorio "ex-sistémico" o guía hacia afuera, hacia algo que nunca haya pasado antes, que nunca haya existido antes.  Como el filósofo marxista de la esperanza Ernst Bloch nos recordó, al mismo grado que nos acercamos a la creación y creatividad emancipatoria (natura naturans y natura naturata) la misma creatividad se nos acercará, se volverá verdaderamente humana, creativa.
Así es, camaradas, la emancipación es una tremenda tarea que dura toda una vida.
Esto nos recuerda a Marx quien declaró: no sólo el pensamiento debe aproximarse a la realidad objetiva, la misma realidad debe aproximarse al pensamiento.  De hecho, esta es la praxis y teoría oscilante, dialéctica.  Por lo tanto, nuestro despegue desde la revolución bolivariana hacia el socialismo sólo puede ser la praxis científica y la teoría filosófica y no la ideología osificada y repetitiva, la práctica consumista automatizada.
Además, para marchar hacia adelante hagámonos algunas preguntas categóricas y esclarecientes, que iluminarán el eslabón más débil de la cadena de ilusiones revolucionarias.  Algunos de nosotros alimentamos la falacia reformista, la creencia lógico-formal, que el cambio social sólo puede venir desde adentro de la globalización capitalista, del capitalismo con rostro humano y humanista.
Bueno, sigan soñando, ¡ser ignorante es una bendición!  Es una locura estudiar la verdadera historia moderna de la clase dominante.
Sin ofender a nadie en particular, ¿realmente somos aun tan ilusos, ciegos … realmente aun nos sentamos en torres de marfil, en la total oscuridad, a pesar del socialismo científico y filosófico … realmente somos tan analfabetos político-económicamente, debido al Dios Sol, al Zodíaco, a Jehová, Apolo, debido a Jesucristo, luego de docenas de milenios de explotación 'cultural y civilizada' de la naturaleza y el trabajo humano?
¿Será posible que por medio de la educación y la información el Hermano Mayor ya nos haya transformado a muchos de nosotros en personas 'alfa' controladas, formadas, informadas y uniformadas mentalmente, en chips con cara humana, una interfaz humana?  Debido a que aceptamos a nuestros amos dueños de trabajadores asalariados, votamos por ellos, especialmente en los países metropolitanos, estamos siendo gobernados por semi-dioses, mitad-máquina, hombres-dioses y dioses-hombre.  Actualmente, nos acosan, torturan y masacran en Afganistán, Colombia, Irak, Bolivia, Nepal, Zimbabue, Palestina, Georgia y Osetia, y la mayor parte del mundo permanece callada, reacciona indiferentemente.  El capitalismo mundial se enfrenta a una crisis, de hecho, según las últimas noticias, estamos al borde de una posible devastadora guerra nuclear en Eurasia, ¿y qué sabemos del fascismo orwelliano, de los arsenales de armas de destrucción masiva, ya probadas en Irak y otras partes, que están siendo producidas para generar gigantescas ganancias y para aniquilarnos a nosotros, las obsoletas fuerzas de trabajo físicas, por millones?
·         ¿Qué salió mal con la revolución mundial, con nuestra propia, bella y pacífica revolución?  ¿Qué salió mal con nuestros revolucionarios?  ¿Realmente estamos todavía en el camino, tenemos una vanguardia, un partido socialista, y cuál es su quo vadis?  ¿De verdad nos importa el futuro?  ¿Tenemos una revolución de un solo hombre?
Para tomar el mando del timón revolucionario con mano firme una vez más, ¿realmente olvidamos todo lo concerniente a la lucha de clase?  ¿Nos olvidamos de Francisco de Miranda, Thomas Paine, la revolución norteamericana y la francesa, la libertad burguesa, la igualdad capitalista y la fraternidad colonial, la guillotina, Marat, Danton, Robespierre, María Antonieta, Luis XVI … el 'reino del terror'?  Esa fue y todavía es la revolución.  A finales del siglo XVIII estaba incompleta, ahora está globalizándose, como Marx y Engels lo predijeron en 1848, en forma de fascismo mundial, se está completando en su totalidad.  Este es nuestro problema actual a escala mundial.
Sin una reflexión teórica sobre lo arriba expuesto de una forma global, con conciencia de clase y proletaria, no podemos desarrollar seriamente una praxis y teoría revolucionaria en Venezuela, y mucho menos sin preparación embarcarnos en la realización de la emancipación humana en el siglo 21.  Actualmente, en un verdadero partido socialista, guiados por el marxismo revolucionario, tenemos que liberarnos de los colmillos ideológicos y los dolores prácticos del opio superestructural y la estricnina ideológica.  De lo contrario, es triste decirlo, como muchas otras revoluciones la propia base popular masiva de nuestro partido revolucionario se desvanecerá en el olvido.  Por lo tanto, las pocas chispas de emancipación humana contra el fascismo global también  morirán gradualmente.
·         La pregunta del 'billón de bolívares fuertes': ¿políticamente, como muchos críticos de nuestro socialismo bolivariano nos tratan hacer creer: en definitiva algo anda mal en algún sitio en Venezuela?  ¿Tenemos una crisis?
¡No hay nada malo en Venezuela!
Al contrario, existe una crisis político-económica en la Casa Blanca, más bien ella debe tratar de salvar sus próximas elecciones fraudulentas y antidemocráticas, o arriesgarse a una toma militar fascista interna oculta o externamente tendrá que simular una guerra nuclear.
En Venezuela no se trata de una cuestión ética de la clase dominante, ni siquiera es un asunto dual lógico-formal de lo 'correcto o incorrecto', desde hace siglos es un asunto dialéctico de vida o muerte.  También en América Latina se trata de una titánica guerra de clases mundial contra la despiadada destrucción y muerte capitalista; actualmente en Venezuela y Bolivia se está dando una inexorable lucha de clases continental, que no es ni pacífica ni bonita.  Como Marx y Engels lo señalaron en su 'Manifiesto Comunista', la lucha de clases global ha perdurado ya desde hace siglos.
Lo repetimos: la lucha de clase no está obsoleta, al contrario, nunca ha estado tan actual, nunca ha sido tan indispensable como hoy.  Argumentos como la eterna letanía que no están dadas las condiciones para el socialismo, podemos refutar preguntando: ¿por qué las condiciones para la explotación siempre están maduras?  ¿Por qué  nunca están dadas para el socialismo?  ¿A qué temen más concreta e inmediatamente los eternos amantes del capitalismo?  ¿Por qué tiemblan los oligarcas en sus ensangrentadas botas militares cuando ven a Chávez o a Evo en Venezuela y en Bolivia?
¿Qué pasó en el 2002-2003 en Venezuela?  ¿Lucha de clases o el jueguito de policías y ladrones con la Policía Metropolitana de Caracas y los francotiradores de los escuadrones de la muerte?
·         ¿Estamos "avanzando" hacia atrás hacia el último milenio, hacia 1998?  ¿Bajo el liderazgo del Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) las masas trabajadoras alzadas (del 2002 y mucho más atrás) lograrán una conciencia de clase revolucionaria más alta, más creatividad emancipatoria, más poder popular socialista?
·         ¿En el drama emancipatorio latinoamericano no son las clases trabajadoras los principales actores y herederos de la revolución social, de la lucha de clases, de la emancipación humana?  ¿Cómo trabajadores venezolanos no somos parte integral del proletariado global en su marcha histórica hacia la emancipación contra el colonialismo y el imperialismo?  ¿Debemos hallar primero al sujeto revolucionario y luego hacer la revolución?  En la última década Venezuela ha avanzado hasta ser el país más politizado del mundo, pero esto no es lo mismo que adquirir una permanente conciencia de clase proletaria.  Independientemente de todo esto, en latencia y tendencia la lucha de clase continuará en Venezuela.  En la misma medida en que el gobierno democráticamente electo del Presidente Chávez incorpore las más profundas aspiraciones proletarias, tendrá un masivo apoyo de la clase trabajadora.  Si cualquier futuro gobierno venezolano desarrolla un estado democrático-burgués capitalista con intereses de clase anti-proletarios que defender, bueno, entonces algo realmente estará "mal" con Venezuela.  Ya ocurrió entre el 11 y el 13 de abril de 2002.  ¡Nunca debería ocurrir de nuevo!
Continuemos con nuestras esclarecedoras preguntas.
Dentro del contexto del actual pillaje fascista de los recursos estratégicos y energéticos globales y del complejo industrial-militar norteamericano tratando de saquear a Venezuela hasta quedar satisfechos, ¿quién puede darse el lujo de elegir, es decir, en la política internacional, quién puede escoger entre el diablo y el profundo mar azul?  De hecho, realmente es una elección entre dos extremos dialécticos, entre la barbarie corporativa orwelliana y la anticipación creativa humana.
En Venezuela tenemos que decidir entre el capitalismo y el socialismo.  ¿Nuestra revolución está preñada con el socialismo científico-filosófico o no lo está?  En la naturaleza no existe la preñez parcial, a la mitad o cincuenta-cincuenta.  No importa si tratamos de cristianizarla, la lógica formal nos enseña que la revolución o es socialista o no lo es, es decir, que es capitalista y burguesa.  No deberíamos de tratar de engañarnos a nosotros mismos.  Si algo es bueno hasta que se prueba lo saborearemos en muy corto tiempo, a finales de noviembre de 2008, cuando el estallido reaccionario definitivo contra la democracia venezolana sea lanzado una vez más, esta vez desde adentro y desde afuera.  Como ya lo ha subrayado varias veces el Presidente Hugo Chávez Frías: el pueblo, las masas trabajadoras, son sabios.  En las últimas elecciones, el 2 de diciembre de 2007, perdimos más de 3 millones de votos.  ¿Por qué?  La respuesta la sabremos a finales de este año.
Ahora, para ubicar a la revolución bolivariana dentro del enfoque científico y filosófico, veamos a futuro la historia contemporánea, la revolución y la emancipación.  Como Bertolt Brecht lo explicó con precisión, los pocos seres humanos que luchan (y lucharon) por la emancipación viva y creativa todas sus vidas, ya han verificado científicamente que pertenecen a los héroes realmente indispensables, optimistas y militantes de la humanidad, especialmente de los billones de siervos y esclavos asalariados desarmados de la Tierra.
En las últimas décadas, para aquellos camaradas en Venezuela que todavía pueden sentir y pensar la realidad, entender lo que es la negación dialéctica del capitalismo, está bastante claro lo que hay que hacer.  No tenemos problemas con la inspiración, aspiración y anticipación práxico-teórica.  Muchos de los jóvenes venezolanos, no consumidos por las necesidades y deseos capitalistas artificiales, se están atreviendo a realizar la larga marcha, tomarse en descanso, romper con los cánticos de guerra normales, fuera de los lugares comunes ordinarios.  Algunos se abren paso por el salvaje y capitalista quid pro quo.
El Presidente Chávez encabeza esta vanguardia juvenil, que todavía conserva el espíritu revolucionario del 13 de abril, de los más profundos deseos anti-capitalistas de los verdaderos sueños diurnos de las masas trabajadoras.  De la misma forma, en América, África, Asia y en todas partes podemos alcanzar las estrellas, per aspera ad astra.  Podemos ir por lo extraordinario, lo desconocido, lo verdaderamente nuevo, en resumen,  por una excursión anticipatoria, un éxodo emancipador.
En este momento los rusos también le dicen No al imperialismo euro-yankee, pero no es el No de la Revolución de Octubre.  Ellos dicen hasta Georgia y ni un milímetro más, sin embargo, este No es intra-capitalista, no es una negación, no es una negación dialéctica anti-capitalista.
Nuestra revolución bolivariana urgentemente necesita una conciencia de clase trabajadora dialéctica, una Negación categórica del capitalismo y el imperialismo, para elevarse a un plano anticapitalista superior.  Si no podemos lograr esto nos desvaneceremos dentro de la revolución de la ya globalizada y finalizada Revolución Francesa.  Hasta ahora, erradicar para siempre de manera sistemática y fundamental la explotación capitalista en Venezuela todavía no es la principal tarea histórica.
En el último siglo, muchas revoluciones sociales han sido arrancadas de raíz, han fracasado debido a este error fatal.
La revolución socialista tiene muchas tareas inmediatas, pero el anti-capitalismo es su signo vital.  Todavía no hemos atacado al mal interno desde sus propias raíces, no somos lo suficientemente radicales todavía.
Sin embargo, el tiempo y el espacio se están acabando en la Madre Tierra …  ¿qué estamos esperando?  ¿Qué lleguen las condiciones revolucionarias?  Ellas no aparecerán por sí solas, por eso es que las revoluciones son pensadas, son hechas.  ¡¿Estamos esperando por la Segunda Venida de la Inquisición o la Conquista del Norte?!
Una cosa es segura, también en Venezuela el renacimiento de una vivaz y valiente lucha de la clase trabajadora definitivamente acelerará la revolución mundial, calentará sus cinco motores para adquirir temperaturas emancipatorias de crucero.
Que una revolución está rugiendo en Venezuela, en América Latina, está claro como el cristal, de hecho, ya tuvimos todo un siglo de revoluciones por todas partes.  El verdadero problema tiene que ver con la identificación científica: ¿estamos haciendo una Revolución Francesa tardía aquí o su Negación?  Como ya se ha explicado en otras partes, Marx nombró la alternativa: la Emancipación Humana.
En el campo de la ilustración educacional para elaborar una exégesis emancipatoria, en Venezuela y América Latina, lógicamente debe lanzarse una gigantesca batalla contra el oscurantismo, la alienación, el idealismo, la ideología y el imperialismo cultural, debe organizarse como parte de un extenso programa político.  Esta es una conditio sine qua non para la teoría y la praxis científica socialista.
¿Qué se quiere decir con ver a futuro y sobriamente la historia capitalista?
Quiere decir que tenemos que liberarnos de las cadenas supersticiosas y religiosas de la zumbeante corriente consumista.  Por medio de once victorias electorales en fila, tratamos de dejar el remolino político de la eterna rectitud ideológica.  Sin embargo, nuestros valientes esfuerzos no fueron lo suficientemente anticapitalistas, no fueron lo suficientemente radicales; no erradicamos los semilleros de la corrupción y la burocracia, la estricnina de la explotación, dominación y discriminación de nuestras mentes y corazones.  En la titánica lucha de clases algunas de nuestras semillas revolucionarias cayeron a un lado del camino, en las rocas del consumismo; fueron devoradas inmediatamente por aves de rapiña, por los males de la acumulación, el robo y las ganancias.
Sin embargo, no importan todas las brutales, reaccionarias y reformistas acometidas por todas partes, muchos de nosotros estamos sobreviviendo como pioneros socialistas, científicos y filosóficos, como marxistas.  Incluso el Presidente Chávez subraya la necesidad de estudiar el socialismo científico y aprender del marxismo.  Armados de una nueva visión del mundo, en Cuba, México, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Haití, Nepal y otras partes nos aventuramos más allá de la colina, la montaña, el mar, el horizonte, hacia lo otro, hacia otras realidades y posibilidades.
A fin de cuentas, nosotros en el Sur podemos retar los argumentos infestados ideológicamente según los cuales las leyes y ciencias del movimiento galáctico fueron creadas exclusivamente para la defensa de la "raza dominante", para el "pueblo escogido", para los magnates corporativos, para su propiedad privada de los medios de producción, la absurda acumulación de riqueza, los privilegios racistas y el poder fascista.  Al mismo tiempo, detestamos las actitudes derrotistas lógico-formales según las cuales el capitalismo es eterno, que nunca morirá, que el cambio social sólo puede venir desde adentro, y en consecuencia, que las condiciones subjetivas, objetivas y 'transjetivas' para realizar el socialismo nunca se darán, nunca madurarán.
Al encontrarnos con semejante ignorancia bendita, filosóficamente tan sólo debemos preguntar: ¿cómo puede el socialismo fracasar como posibilidad anticapitalista radical, como emancipación anticipada?  Según el famoso filósofo idealista objetivista alemán Georg W. F. Hegel, un experto en dialéctica, sólo las realidades, como el capitalismo, que hace ya mucho tiempo existe, merecen perecer.  Las posibilidades no existen, sólo están latentes y son tendenciales, por lo tanto no pueden fracasar, morir.   Quien sólo vive del pan posible en la vida real seguramente morirá de hambre.
El capitalismo mundial, incluyendo el capitalismo de Estado, ya tuvo su oportunidad, a lo largo de los siglos sólo trajo miseria, explotación, alienación y muerte por billones.  El socialismo mundial, su opuesto dialéctico,  no puede dar a luz lo mismo, ya que no sería su opuesto, no sería socialismo;  nunca se le ha dado una oportunidad real de convertir su posibilidad en una realidad global.  Esta es nuestra tarea inmediata.
Algunas preguntas vinculantes y relevantes:
·         ¿Si el socialismo posible permanentemente es reprimido por el estalinismo, el sionismo, el Apartheid, es decir, por el fascismo global, entonces qué ha fracasado en realidad?  ¿Acaso no es el capitalismo?
·         ¿Qué se encuentra actualmente en una severa crisis que amenaza con iniciar una guerra mundial genocida?
·         ¿En la Casa Blanca no es la democracia burguesa, en realidad, el fascismo, el que está en crisis?  ¿Acaso no es el fascismo la verdadera mueca del capitalismo mundial en crisis?
La ideología capitalista nos enseña que el socialismo se practicó en la Rusia Soviética y en la China Maoísta.  Los socialistas científicos y filosóficos saben que el socialismo en una isla, en un país, y en un bloque seguramente será asfixiado, a la larga morirá.  El capitalismo es un modo de producción global, sólo puede ser aniquilado a escala mundial.
De todas formas, quien todavía sueña que el socialismo se practicó en la Unión Soviética, Europa Oriental o en la China "comunista" no tiene ni la más mínima idea de lo que es una caricatura, lo que es la negación dialéctica de la explotación, dominación y discriminación capitalista y lo que es un modo de producción capitalista mundial dominante.  Lo reiteramos, en nombre de la claridad política, para evitar la confusión ideológica, el capitalismo es una plaga global, no puede erradicarse localmente en una isla, regionalmente en un solo país, continentalmente en un bloque: hace ya décadas Trotsky explicó todo esto en su teoría de la revolución mundial permanente.
Obviamente, luego de milenios de valientes intentos de cambiar el sistema mundial explotador desde adentro del proceso de trabajo, desde dentro de la historia de la clase dominante, nosotros en Venezuela en la hora decisiva tenemos que buscar una verdadera salida emancipatoria trascendental de este valle de lágrimas de trabajadores, fuera de este mortal cul de sac sistémico.  Nosotros mismos debemos crear una salida, tenemos que tener éxito, sobrepasar, sobresalir;  es un asunto que le concierne a la emancipación humana global, a la preservación de la vida planetaria en su totalidad o a un holocausto mental, el caos nuclear y a una lenta muerte galáctica infernal.
Si sabemos esto, la realidad social andará muy bien en Venezuela.
Ahora bien, junto al marxista Ernst Bloch aventurémonos más allá, no caminemos hacia la sombra de la muerte, aproximándonos al infierno o al cielo.  A plena luz del día salgamos, hagamos un excitante éxodo "exvolucionario".
Hace poco tiempo, aquí en Venezuela, ¿quién sabía algo acerca de la existencia de Osetia?  ¿De qué manera el futuro de Osetia, Georgia y Polonia afectan nuestra realidad terrenal?
Para variar, trascendiendo la lógica e ideología comunes, tratemos de capturar filosóficamente el significado global de la venidera Guerra Orwelliana entre "Eurasia y Oceanía", entre las gigantescas corporaciones imperialistas transnacionales.
Como lo predijo Marx, a nivel globalizado, el capitalismo mundial puede adaptarse a cada segundo, puede ganar un segundo aire de agonía de clase, pero nunca puede cortar su Talón de Aquiles, su contradicción dialéctica interna; el Trabajo contra el Capital.  Puede producir neoliberalismo, reformismo, alianzas de clase, consenso de clases, reconciliación de clases, diálogos de clase, comisiones de la verdad y pactos entre caballeros,  pero no puede eliminar la lucha de clase, la guerra de clases, sin destruirse también a sí mismo.  Para erradicar su existencia interna, debe aniquilarse a sí mismo, y en este caso estaríamos hablando de algo diferente.

Nuestra trinidad humana: nuestra limitación objetiva, nuestra posibilidad subjetiva, nuestra anticipación 'transjetiva'

En Venezuela, como en todas partes, millones de nosotros estamos confinados al dominio  inmediato de la diosa Gaia.  La explotada y violada Madre Tierra marca los límites objetivos concretos diarios de nuestra esencia cósmica, de nuestro ser humano, de nuestras acciones, trabajo y 'placer'.  Seguramente la belicosa tecnología capitalista de vez en cuando nos permite a un puñado de nosotros escapar científicamente a geo por un rato; físicamente, como astronautas de la NASA podemos penetrar las barreras externas lógico-formales, espacio-temporales de nuestro hábitat natural; teóricamente incluso podemos investigar en las capas superiores de nuestra azulada existencia solar.  Algunas veces los "Extraterrestres del Pentágono", los miembros de la intelligentsia técnica altamente especializada, sí tienen la peligrosa tarea de saltar en la Luna o de morir la próxima vez en una nave espacial que secretamente se dirija hacia Marte.
En la oscuridad de semejantes momentos fugaces, al entrar el milenio, aquí en Mérida, Venezuela, en la Universidad de Los Andes, como científicos naturales de repente saltamos de nuestra normal, aburrida y universal ruedita para hamsters y descubrimos lo nuevo: un pequeño planeta rotando en la oscura periferia de nuestro sistema solar, más allá de Plutón, llamado Jayú.
Al mismo tiempo, en abril de 2002, por medio de la praxis clasista popular única, en 47 horas salvamos a nuestro Presidente secuestrado, Hugo Chávez Frías, de las garras de los golpistas sedientos de sangre y lo regresamos a salvo a Miraflores.  Unos pocos meses después, en tiempo record, rescatamos al país de un severo plan petrolero y un sabotaje económico a nivel nacional, lanzados por irracionales conspiradores opositores y sus respectivos patronos yanquis corporativos imperialistas en Miami, Washington D.C. y Europa.
Por lo tanto, teóricamente, en Venezuela, en América Latina, y en todas partes en el Sur, ya hemos atorado nuestras narices a través de los barrotes metropolitanos de la universalidad explotadora.  Desde hace más de una década ya estamos respirando fresco aire transvolucionario, libre oxígeno creativo exvolucionario.  Las miopes y ruines elites globales pueden volar toda su patria en pedazos, destruir toda la propiedad privada de los medios de producción, reducir todas las mercancías a cenizas radiactivas, pero  no pueden detener a lo auténticamente nuevo, la llegada de la primavera humana, la trinidad creativa, es decir, la esencia, existencia y trascendencia humana emancipatoria.
Como ya lo declaró Ernst Bloch: ellos no pueden detener el experimento humano, el experimento mundo, experimentum mundi.  A pesar de todos los peligros de la globalización, el imperialismo no puede detener el inexorable, sublime y majestuoso trueno del amanecer galáctico carmesí de la natura naturata y la natura naturans, de la naturaleza creativa y la naturaleza creada.
Tenemos que liberarnos de las telarañas religiosas, de la maldición divina que va del génesis al apocalipsis, y aventurarnos científica y filosóficamente mucho más allá.
En el espíritu de nuestra época, en su Zeitgeist, como lo apuntamos anteriormente, estamos sobrepasando los barrotes físicos de las trampas, cuevas y engaños de la clase dominante.  Vemos que estamos vegetando en un sistema cerrado, en una ratonera cerrada.  Dentro de la revolución bolivariana estamos comenzando a pensar seriamente,  a teorizar con trascendencia científica; filosóficamente estamos dejando la perspectiva mundial heliocentrista.  Tenemos que crear una nueva lógica, un nuevo modo de actuar y pensar, una nueva ciencia y una nueva filosofía; tenemos que renovarnos de nuevo.
El militarismo capitalista ya está en busca de nuevas formas de vida en todas partes; vida que será violada y destruida despiadadamente por los magnates de las clases dominantes una vez más.  Necesitamos saltar sobre la Luna con el fin de saber lo que ocurre en los dominios de la diosa Selena.  El antiguo filósofo hilozoísta Anaxágoras ya sabía que Luna era una gran 'roca'; por esta blasfemia (asebeia) contra las verdades absolutas y absolutistas controladas por la clase dominante y sancionadas como sagradas, fue declarado persona non grata y fue condenado al ostracismo de Atenas.  Aquí ya vemos el peligro de la verdadera ciencia y filosofía para la clase dirigente.
Mientras nosotros, como abejas consumistas sigamos zumbando en nuestros celulares,  nademos con la corriente, devorando la propaganda, mitos, engaños y mentiras predominantes, nunca sabremos que estamos languideciendo en un orden mundial capitalista cerrado, que estamos trancados física y mentalmente.
Desde la Primera Conquista, el 'descubrimiento', la cristianización y la ocupación militar, la absoluta mayoría de nosotros en Asia, África, América y Oceanía estamos viviendo en una "democrática" cárcel de sueños, en un sistema mundial "pacíficamente" fortificado, en un cementerio globalizado totalmente lleno con toneladas y toneladas de mortales armas de destrucción masiva que pueden destruir al propio planeta.
De hecho, como ya lo explicaron Marx y Engels en el Manifiesto del Partido Comunista (1848) la llamada globalización es la realización de la Revolución Francesa.  En este sentido, es la agonía dialéctica,  el apogeo intrasistémico de la acumulación del capital, de la monopolización, de las fusiones, del propio capitalismo.  También en Venezuela estamos en la encrucijada de la producción y destrucción capitalista, en el Rubicón: también para la revolución bolivariana es el socialismo científico, filosófico o la barbarie reformista 'neoliberal'.  Pero también podría ser: ni socialismo ni barbarie: es decir, emancipación creativa y creadora.
En cualquier caso, no deberíamos hundirnos con el Titanic capitalista, por medio de una exvolución, debemos abandonar este capitalista barco de Estado.
Como se declaró anteriormente, muy anticipadamente, el propio Marx llamó a esto: 'emancipación humana'.  La actual "herramienta parlante" (Aristóteles) globalizada es una mercancía capitalista que está siendo comprada y vendida al peor postor, prácticamente gratis en el mercado internacional del trabajo.  A pesar de la inmensa riqueza, derivada de los altos precios petroleros, en el terrenal valle de lágrimas, la miseria que el trabajador recibe de su salario apenas cubre la diaria reproducción de su obsoleta fuerza de trabajo físico.
En el mercado mundial la intelligentsia, los 'trabajadores intelectuales', usando máquinas y computadoras están sacando de la existencia a millones de trabajadores físicos.  Los trabajadores intelectuales producen casi el 80 por ciento de los principales bienes, intercambiados principalmente entre los estados metropolitanos; el 50 por ciento de estos productos son mercancías bélicas, todo tipo de armas de destrucción masiva.
Como lo predijo Marx en 'El Capital', en las últimas décadas, la progresión geométrica del empobrecimiento a escala global, incluso ahora está devorando a la clase media en los EE.UU. y Europa.  Además, la composición orgánica del capital se ha elevado dramáticamente.  Inexorablemente las fuerzas de trabajo físicas vivientes están siendo reemplazadas por máquinas, computadoras y chips, esto quiere decir que nuestros valores de uso y de cambio en el Sur se han depreciado a pasos agigantados; millones de nosotros estamos siendo arrojados a las calles para morir como resultado de la hambruna, la pobreza, la miseria y las plagas.
Esto quiere decir que también aquí en Venezuela sobrevivimos y vegetamos en un orden mundial "libre" fuertemente vigilado, en realidad, en un infierno laboral cerrado, en el proceso capitalista de la producción humana, en la destrucción imperialista, de hecho, en la historia corporativa unilateral, universal.
Lo que no podemos lograr objetivamente como billones de seres físicos individuales lo podemos alcanzar como seres y existencias sociales subjetivas.  Ernst Bloch lo dijo de la siguiente manera: Pensar es aventurarse más allá.  Como actores y pensadores, objetivamente y subjetivamente, como seres y existencias humanas, como proletariado con conciencia de clase, nosotros, los trabajadores venezolanos, nosotros, los 'condenados de la Tierra' podemos salir de nuestro laberinto.
Por esto es que la revolución bolivariana nació hace más de una década, por esto hemos lanzado el socialismo bolivariano.  Es un levantamiento social masivo revolucionario contra la barbarie globalizada ya existente.  Ahora, aquellos de nosotros que nos encontramos en la vanguardia de la revolución social y socialista, inmediatamente sentimos cuando nos estamos saliendo del camino.  En la época de la globalización, en semejantes tiempos difíciles y peligrosos, en la feroz lucha de clases, de manera muy fácil podemos caer en las cuevas, enredarnos en los feroces tentáculos del imperialismo corporativo.
La revolución bolivariana, la lucha por establecer el socialismo a escala mundial, es una tarea gigantesca.  Necesita revolucionarios críticos en la práxis.  Existe una visión del mundo, a saber, el socialismo científico, socialista, sapiente, el marxismo, que no le teme a la autocrítica, a la verdad; es la única filosofía viviente dentro del fascismo global que todavía puede guiarnos hacia la verdadera emancipación humana.

*****
Traducido por Jesús Nery Barrios.
ORIGINAL:

Latin America: Venezuela: A philosophic exegesis of possible emancipatory sparks

 By Franz J. T. Lee.

http://www.franzlee.org/index2.html
franzjutta@cantv.net

http://vheadlinevenezuelanews.blogspot.com/2008/08/venezue
la-bolivarian-revolution.html

http://www.pr-inside.com/venezuela-the-bolivarian-revolution-
the-r770729.htm

http://vheadlinevenezuelaenespanol.blogspot.com/2008/08/venezuela-una-exgesis-filosfica-de-las.html

Venezuela: A philosophic exegesis of possible emancipatory sparks
What is the quo vadis of our United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)?

By Franz J. T. Lee

 In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell.
Knoweth ye the truth and the truth shall make thee free.
Jesus Christ.

A hypothesis first argued by Parmenides (540 - 470 B.C) of Elea (present day Italy), who as we know had a profound influence on Platonic idealist philosophy, and therewith on Christianity, has caused across the last millennia a cancerous intellectual and time barrier in the realm of real, creative emancipatory endeavors. Like in the case of the faked, anti-African-Arab racist 'discovery of America' by Christopher Columbus the following formal logical 'absolute truth' has become the cornerstone of progressive political domination, has turned out to be the greatest ideological and systemic hoax of all times: Nothing comes from nothing, in Latin form: ex nihilo nihil fit.

In other words, only the great gods have created everything, even themselves, out of nihil, out of Nothing, out of Nothingness. Consequently, we should not and cannot enter nihil, it is the 'Holy of Holies'; globally the arch-angels of the accumulation of capital watch us, guide us towards the green pastures of toil, of labor pain. The holy oligarchs see to it that we do not mess around with divine creation. As explained in the Holy Scriptures the originators of the universe are pleased with their construction out of Nothing,  and that is all that really counts in capitalist alienation.

In brief, in Venezuela, in Bolivia, in Latin America, cultural imperialism still teaches us that there is no escape from the universal labor process, from exploitative ruling class history, from the wrath of Jahwe, from capitalism, from human alienation. We should better capitulate and resign from class struggle; as Jesus Christ predicted, we will always have the poor with us. As global racists desire, we will always have superior whites and inferior blacks, poor workers and rich capitalists, in essence, always masters and slaves.

Across the last centuries this is what colonial education in the South was all about. Also in Venezuela and elsewhere many of us still fall victim to these capitalist ideological  tricks and illusions, innocently we mistake them for true revolutionary and emancipatory deeds. Thus, according to corporate ideology and reformism, the universal, closed system, the world order can only be changed from within, by means of evolution and revolution; alternatively,which is the very same thing, the status quo can only be improved by endless prayers, forgiveness (for all the perpetrated ruling class mental and bodily holocausts which have already devoured hundreds of millions of precious lives across the millennia), by genuflections, secret devil pacts across class lines, anti-proletarian gentlemen agreements, truth courts, class consensus and treacherous alliances. Such reformist recipes also include: eternal faith, hope, love and charity; anything else, for example, proletarian creation, transvolution or exvolution, is tantamount to so-called evil, tyranny, dictatorship and international terrorism. Such new concepts that express the emancipatory spirit of tour apocalyptic time do not even appear ion the horizon of contemporary political and philosophic language, erudite scholarship and global emancipatory life. On the other hand, our global favorite political house word is ideology, its slogan is ideology training, its practice is is to organize ideology workshops.

All this is bourgeois, is outdated, it cannot fight corporate  globalization, it is not new, not innovative; its capitalist vices date back to Francis Bacon and Destutt de Tracy. Marx and Engels already criticized "The German Ideology" before the 1848 revolutions in Europe, later they formulated the "Communist Manifesto" for a human exegesis out of this vale of tears, towards "human emancipation" (Marx). Obviously Marxism itself has urgently to globalize, to update itself. This is precisely what we are doing here.

In Venezuela, in the epoch of globalization, of global fascism, we need a praxis and theory much more powerful than an obsolete  bourgeois revolution, we necessitate the real new, a new emancipatory (wo)man whom the world has never seen before: we necessitate urgently an "exvolution"; an exodus of capitalist bondage. This is a mighty global task, not a one man or family endeavor. It needs a real and truly functioning praxico-theoretical Fourth or Last International.

However, to continue with this gigantic transhistoric task,  we would need a creative, creating exegesis, ἐξηγεῖσθαι , that is, an emancipatory "ex-systemic" manifesto or guide towards the outside, towards something that never happened before, never ever existed before. As the Marxist philosopher of hope Ernst Bloch reminded us, in the same degree as we approach emancipatory creation and creativity (natura naturans and natura naturata) creativity itself will come nearer to us, will become truly human, humane, creative.

Yes, comrades, emancipation is a tremendous life long task.

This reminds us of Marx who stated: not only thought should approximate objective reality, reality itself must approach thought. In fact, this is oscillating, dialectical praxis and theory. Hence our departure in the Bolivarian Revolution towards socialism can only be scientific praxis and philosophic theory, and not ossified ideology and repetitive,  automatic consumer practice.

Furthermore, Ernst Bloch taught us that thinking is venturing beyond, is surpassing, is exit; he wrote: The cat falls on its four paws, but the human being who has not learned to think falls into eternal yesterday.

Hence, to march straight forward let us ask some categorical, answering questions, which will illuminate the weakest link of the chain of revolutionary illusions. Some of us nurture the reformist fallacy, the formal, logical belief,  that social change can only come from within, from within capitalist globalization, from capitalism with a human, humanist face.

Well, dream on, ignorance is bliss! It is folly to study real, ruling class, modern history.

* Without offending anybody in particular, by the Sun God, by the Zodiac, by Jahwe, by Apollo, by Jesus Christ,  really, after dozens of millennia of 'cultural and civilized' exploitation of nature and human labor are we really still so naive, so blind, ... are we really still sitting in ivory towers, in total obscurity, in spite of scientific and philosophic socialism, ... are we politico-economically really so illiterate?

Could it be that via education and information Big Brother has already transformed many of us into mentally-controlled, formed,  informed and uniformed 'alpha' peoples, into chips with a human face, a human interface? Because we accept our wage slave masters, cast our vote for them, especially in the metropolitan countries, we are being ruled by half-gods, half-machines, men-gods and god-men. Currently, they harass, torture and massacre us in Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Bolivia, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Palestine, Georgia and Ossetia, and the greater part of the world remains silent, reacts indifferently. World capitalism is facing a crisis, in fact, according to the latest news, we are on the brink of a possible devastating nuclear war in Eurasia, and what do we know about Orwellian  fascism, about the stockpiles of arms of mass destruction, already tested in Iraq and elsewhere,  which are being produced for mammoth profits and to annihilate us, obsolete physical labor forces, by the millions?

* What went wrong with the world revolution, with our own beautiful and peaceful revolution? With our revolutionaries? Are we really still on track, do we have a vanguard, a socialist party, and what is its quo vadis? Do we care about the future at all?  Do we have a one man revolution?

To grasp the revolutionary steering wheel with a firm grip again, did we really forget all about class struggle? About Francisco de Miranda, Thomas Paine, the American Revolution and the French Revolution, about bourgeois liberty, capitalist equality and colonial fraternity, about the guillotine, about Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, ... about the 'reign of terror'? That was the revolution and is still the revolution. At the end of the 18th century it was incomplete, now in globalization, as Marx and Engels predicted in 1848, in world fascism, it is fully completing itself. This is our current problem on a world scale.

Without theoretical reflection of the above in a global, class conscious, proletarian manner we cannot seriously develop revolutionary praxis and theory in Venezuela, least of all, unprepared could we embark on realizing human emancipation in the 21st century at all. Presently, in a true  socialist party, guided by revolutionary Marxism,  we have to liberate ourselves from the ideological fangs and practical pangs of ruling class superstructural opium and ideological strychnine. If not, sad to say, like many other revolutions the very popular mass base of our revolutionary party will fade into oblivion. Therewith the few sparks of  human emancipation against global fascism will also gradually die out.

* The 'strong billion bolivar' question: politically, as so much critique of our Bolivarian socialism try to make us believe: politically, definitely is something going wrong somewhere in Venezuela? Do we have a crisis?

Nothing is wrong in and with Venezuela!

On the contrary, politico-economically there is a crisis in the White House, either it must try to save its coming fraudulent, undemocratic  elections, or to risk a hidden internal fascist military take-over or externally it will have to fake a nuclear war.


In Venezuela it is not a ruling class ethical question, it is not even a formal logical dualistic 'right or wrong' issue, since centuries it is a dialectical matter of life and death. Also in Latin America, it is a titanic world class war against merciless capitalist destruction and death; currently in Venezuela and Bolivia it is an inexorable continental class struggle, it is neither pacific nor beautiful. As Marx and Engels have pointed out in their 'Communist Manifesto', global class struggle has raged since millennia already.

We repeat: class struggle is not obsolete, on the contrary, it never has been so topical, so indispensable like today. Arguments like the eternal litany, that the conditions are not yet ripe for socialism, we can just counter this reformism by asking: why are all the conditions for exploitation always mature? Why never for socialism? What do the eternal lovers of capitalism concretely and immediately fear most? When they see Chávez or Evo, why do the oligarchs shiver in their bloody army boots in Bolivia and Venezuela?

What happened in 2002-3 in Venezuela? Class struggle or playing cops and crooks with the Caracas Metropolitan Police and the snipers of the Death Squads?

* Are we "advancing" backwards towards the last millennium, towards 1998? Under the leadership of the  United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) will the awakened working masses (of 2002 and much earlier) really attain a higher revolutionary class consciousness, more emancipatory creativity, socialist people's power?

* In the Latin American emancipatory drama are the working classes not the main actors and heirs of socialist revolution, of class struggle, of human emancipation? Are we as Venezuelan workers not part and parcel of the global proletariat in its historic march towards emancipation against colonialism and imperialism? Must we first find the revolutionary subject and then make the revolution? Over the last decade Venezuela has advanced to the most politicized country in the world, but this is not identical with the acquisition of a permanent proletarian class consciousness. Independent of all this, in latency and tendency the class struggle will continue in Venezuela. As long as the democratically elected government of President Chávez incorporates the deepest proletarian aspirations, it will have massive working class support. If any future Venezuelan government should develop into a bourgeois, democratic, capitalist State with anti-proletarian class interests to defend, well, then something will really go "wrong·with Venezuela. It happened already between April 11 and 13, 2002. It should never happen again!

Let us continue with our answering questions.

Within the context of the current fascist pillage of global strategic and energetic resources and of the North American industrial military complex to plunder Venezuela to their heart's content, who else has Hobson's choice, that is, in international politics, who else can only choose between the devil and the deep blue sea? In fact, it is really a choice between two dialectical extremes, between Orwellian corporate barbarism and creative, human anticipation.

We in Venezuela have to decide between capitalism and socialism. Either our revolution is pregnant with scientific, philosophic socialism or it is not? There is no quarter, half way or fifty-fifty pregnancy in nature. No matter how we try to Christianize it, formal logics teaches us that the revolution is either socialist or it is not, that is, it is bourgeois capitalist. We should not try to fool ourselves.

The proof of the pudding we will relish in a very short period of time, at the end of  November 2008, when the full reactionary blast against Venezuelan democracy will be launched again, this time from the inside and the outside. As President Hugo Chávez Frías so often underlined: the people, the working masses are wise. In the last elections, for the first time, on December 2, 2007, we lost over 3 million votes. Why? The answer we will know at the end of this year.

Now, to place the Bolivarian Revolution into scientific and philosophic focus, let us look at the long view of contemporary history, of revolution and emancipation. As Bertolt Brecht precisely explained, the few human beings who fight (and fought) for living, creative emancipation all their lives, have already verified scientifically that they belong to the real indispensable, optimistic and militant heroes of humanity, especially of the billions of unarmed toiling slaves and wage slaves on earth.

Over the last decades, for those comrades in Venezuela who still can sense and think reality, can understand what is dialectical negation of capitalism, it is clear what has to be done. We do not have problems with praxico-theoretocal inspiration, aspiration and anticipation. Many of the Venezuelan youths, not consumed by artificial capitalist needs and desires, are daring to take a long walk, to take a break, to break out of the normal war chant, out of ordinary commonplace. Some break through the savage capitalist quid pro quo.

President Chávez heads this youthful vanguard, which still preserves the revolutionary spirit of April 13, of the deepest anti-capitalist desires of the real daydreams of the working masses. As such, in America, Africa, Asia and elsewhere we can reach out for the stars, per aspera ad astra. We can go for the extraordinary, the unknown, the real new, in a nut shell, for an anticipatory outing, an emancipatory exodus.

At the moment the Russians also say No to Euro-Yankee imperialism, but it is not the No of the October Revolution.  They say till Georgia and not a millimeter further, however, this No is intra-capitalist, it is not a negation, it is not an anti-capitalist dialectical negation.

Our Bolivarian revolution urgently necessitates a dialectical working class consciousness, a categorical Negation of capitalism and imperialism, to elevate itself on a higher anti-capitalist plane. If we cannot achieve this we will fade away into the revolution of the now globalized and finalized French Revolution. Till now, to eradicate systematically and principled forever capitalist exploitation in Venezuela, has not yet been the main historic task.

Over the last century, many a social revolution was nipped in the bud, has failed because of this mortal mistake.

Socialist revolution has many immediate tasks, but anti-capitalism is its heart beat. We have not yet tackled the internal evil at its very roots, we are not radical enough as yet.

However, time and space on Mother Earth are running out ... what are we waiting for? For the revolutionary conditions to come? They will not come by themselves, that is why revolutions are being thought, are made. Are we waiting for the Second Coming of the Inquisition or the Conquest from the North!

One thing is sure, also in Venezuela the renaissance of a vivid, valiant working class struggle will definitely accelerate the world revolution, will heat up its five revolutionary motors to acquire cruising emancipatory temperatures.

That a revolution is raging in Venezuela, in Latin America, is crystal clear, in fact, we already had a century of revolutions all over. The real problem concerns scientific identification: Are we making a retarded French Revolution here or its Negation? As explained elsewhere, Marx called the alternative: Human Emancipation.

In the field of educational enlightenment to draw up an emancipatory exegesis, in Venezuela and in Latin America logically a gigantic intellectual praxico-theoretical battle against obscurantism, alienation, idealism, ideology and cultural imperialism must be launched, must be organized, as part of an extensive political program. This is a conditio  sine qua non for scientific, socialist theory and praxis.

What is meant by taking a long, sober view of capitalist history?

It means that we have to break loose from the superstitious and religious shackles of the humming consumerist main stream. By means of eleven electoral victories in a row, we tried to leave the political maelstrom of eternal ideological correctness. However, our valiant efforts were not sufficiently anti-capitalist, not radical enough; we did not uproot the seedlings of corruption and bureaucracy, the strychnine of exploitation, domination and discrimination in our hearts and minds. In the titanic class struggle some of our revolutionary seeds fell on the wayside, on the rocks of consumerism; they were immediately devoured by birds of prey, by the capitalist arch-evils of accumulation, theft and profits.

However, never mind all the brutal reactionary, reformist onslaughts all over many of us are surviving as socialists, scientific and philosophic pathfinders, as Marxists. Even President Chávez is underlining the necessity of studying scientific socialism and learning from Marxism. Armed with a new world outlook, in Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Haiti, Nepal and elsewhere we are venturing beyond the hill, the mountain, the sea, the horizon, towards other, towards another realities and possibilities.


At last, we in the South, can challenge the ideologically infested arguments that the laws and sciences of galactic motion were created exclusively for the defense of the "master race", for the "chosen people", for the corporate moguls, for their private property of the means of production, absurd wealth accumulation, racist privileges and fascist power. At the same time, we detest the formal logical defeatist attitudes which argue that capitalism is eternal, will never perish, that social change can only come from within, and consequently, that objective, subjective and 'transjective' conditions to realize socialism will never ever come, would never ripen.

Faced with such ignorant bliss, philosophically we may just ask: how can socialism, as radical anti-capitalist possibility, as anticipated emancipation fail? According to the famous German objectivist idealist philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel, an expert in dialectics, only realities, like capitalism, which long ago already came into existence merit to pass away. Possibilities do not exist, they are only latent and tendential, hence they cannot fail, pass away. Who only lives on possible bread alone in real life will surely die of hunger.

World capitalism, including State capitalism, had its turn, across centuries for billions it just brought misery, exploitation, alienation and death. World socialism, its dialectical opposite, cannot bring forth the very same, else it will not be its opposite, will not be socialism; it never was given the real chance to convert its possibility into global reality. This is our immediate task.

Some related, relevant questions:

* If possible socialism permanently is being repressed by Stalinism, Zionism, Apartheid, that is, by global fascism, then what has failed in reality? Is it not capitalism?

* What is currently in a severe crisis which threatens to ignite a genocidal world war?

* In the White House, is not bourgeois democracy, in reality, fascism in crisis ? Is fascism not the the real grimace of world capitalism in crisis?

Capitalist ideology teaches us that socialism was practiced in Soviet Russia and Maoist China. Scientific and philosophic socialists know that socialism on an island, in one country and in one bloc will surely be suffocated, will eventually perish. Capitalism is a global mode of production, it can only be annihilated on a world scale.

Anyhow, who still dreams that socialism was practiced in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe or in "Communist" China does not have the foggiest notion what is a caricature, what is the dialectical negation of capitalist exploitation, domination and discrimination and what ls a dominant world capitalist mode of production. We repeat, for the sake of political clarity, to avoid ideological confusion, capitalism is a global plague, it cannot be eradicated locally on a single island,regionally in a single country, continentally in a bloc: already decades ago, Trotsky has explained all this in his theory of permanent world revolution.

Obviously, after millennia of valiant attempts to change the exploitative world system from within the labor process, from within ruling class history, we in Venezuela at the eleventh hour have to look for a real transcendental  emancipatory exit out of this vale of workers' tears, out of this mortal systemic cul de sac.   We ourselves have to create an exit, we have to succeed, to exceed, excel; it is a pertinent matter of urgent global human emancipation, of the preservation of planetary life in its totality or of a mental holocaust, of nuclear entropy and of a hellish galactic slow death.

If we know this, social reality will become fine in Venezuela.

Now, with the Marxist Ernst Bloch let us venture beyond, let us not walk in the shadow of death, approximating hell or heaven. In broad daylight let us exit, let us make an  exciting, "exvolutionary" exodus.

A little while ago, here in Venezuela, who knew anything about the existence of Ossetia? In which way does the future of Ossetia, Georgia and Poland affect our earthly existence?

For a change, transcending common logics and ideology, let us try philosophically to capture the global meaning of the coming Orwellian War between "Eurasia and Oceania", between gigantic transnational imperialist corporations.

As Marx predicted, at the level of globalization, world capitalism could adapt itself every second, could win a new lease of class agony, but it can never cut off its Achilles Heel, its internal dialectical contradiction: Labor versus Capital. It could produce neoliberalism, reformism, class alliances, class consensus, class reconciliation, class dialogues,  truth commissions and gentlemen agreements, but it cannot eliminate class struggle, class war, without destroying itself also. To eradicate its internal existence, it has to annihilate itself, and in this case we will be talking about something different.

Our human trinity: our objective limitation, our subjective possibility, our 'transjective' anticipation

In Venezuela, like elsewhere, millions of us are confined to the immediate realm of the goddess Gaia. Exploited and violated Mother Earth marks the concrete everyday objective limits of our cosmic essence, of our human being, of our actions, work and 'pleasure'. Surely, belligerent capitalist technology now and then allows a very few of us scientifically to escape Geo for a little while; physically, as NASA astronauts we can penetrate the formal-logical, spatial-temporal external barriers of our natural habitat; theoretically we can even investigate the upper layers of our azure solar existence. Sometimes "Pentagon Aliens", members of the highly specialized technical intelligentsia, do have the perilous task to hop along on the moon or to perish next time in a spaceship secretly heading towards Mars.

In the darkness of such fleeting moments, at the turn of the millennium, here in Mérida, Venezuela, at the University of The Andes, as natural scientists suddenly we did jump off our normal, boring, universal rat carousel and discovered the new: a small planet rotating in the obscure outskirts of our solar systems, beyond Pluto, namely Jayú.

At the same time, in April 2002, by means of unique, popular class praxis within 47 hours we saved our kidnapped president, Hugo Chávez Frías, from the claws of bloodthirsty coupsters and returned him safely to  Miraflores. A few months later, within record time, we rescued the very country from a severe oil plot and a national economic sabotage, launched  by reckless oppositional plotters and their respective imperialist, corporate Yankee bosses in Miami, Washington DC, and in Europe.

Hence, theoretically, in Venezuela, in Latin America, and elsewhere in the South, we have already stuck our noses through the metropolitan bars of exploitative universality. Since more than a decade already we are  breathing fresh transvolutionary air, free exvolutionary creative oxygen. The Lilliputian myopic global elites could bomb the whole fatherland to blazes, could destroy all private property of the means of production, could reduce all commodities to radioactive ashes, but they cannot stop the authentic new, the coming of human spring, of creative trinity, that is, of emancipatory human essence, existence and transcendence.

As Ernst Bloch stated: they cannot stop the human experiment, the experiment world, experimentum mundi. In spite of all the dangers of globalization, imperialism cannot halt the inexorable, sublime, majestic thunder of the galactic, crimson-red dawn of natura naturata and natura naturans, of creative nature and created nature.

We have to free ourselves from the religious cobwebs, from the divine curse ranging from genesis to apocalypse, and venture scientifically and philosophically far beyond.   

In the spirit of our epoch, in its zeitgeist, as pointed out before, we are surpassing the physical bars of ruling class traps, pot-holes and hoaxes. We see that we are vegetating in a closed system, in a closed rat hole. Within the Bolivarian revolution we are beginning to think seriously, to theorize with scientific transcendence; philosophically we are leaving the heliocentrist world outlook. We have to create a new logic, a new mode of action and thought, a new science and a new philosophy; we have to renovate ourselves anew.

Capitalist militarism is already in search for new forms of life elsewhere; life which mercilessly could be violated and destroyed by ruling class moguls again. We need not jump over the moon in order to know what is happening in the realm of the goddess Selena. The ancient hylozoist philosopher Anaxagoras already knew that Luna was a big 'rock'; for this blasphemy (asebeia) against ruling class controlled and sanctioned holy, absolute and absolutist truths, he was declared a persona non grata and was ostracized from Athens. Here we see already the danger of true science and real philosophy for the ruling class establishment.

As long as we as consumer bees hum in our cell phones, as long as we swim along with stream, devouring main stream propaganda, myths, hoaxes and lies, we will never know that we are languishing in a closed capitalist world order, that we are physically and mentally locked up in

Ever since the First Conquest, since the 'discovery', Christianization and military occupation, the absolute majority of us in Asia, Africa, America and Oceania are living in a "democratic" dream jail, in a "peacefully" fortified world system, in a globalized graveyard totally stockpiled with tons and tons of mortal arms of mass destruction which could destroy the very planet itself.

In fact, as explained by Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) already, the so-called globalization is the realization of the French Revolution. In this sense, it is the dialectical agony, the intrasystemic apex of capital accumulation, of monopolization, of merging, of capitalism itself. Also in Venezuela we are on the crossroads of capitalist production and destruction, on the Rubicon: also for the Bolivarian revolution it is either scientific, philosophic socialism or 'neoliberal' reformist barbarism. But, it could also be: neither socialism nor barbarism: that is, creative, creating emancipation.

At any event, we should not sink with the capitalist Titanic, by means of an exvolution, we have to get off this fascist ship of State.

As stated before, very early, Marx himself called this exodus: 'human emancipation'. The current globalized "speaking tool" (Aristotle) is a capitalist commodity which is being bought and sold to the lowest bidder, practically for free on the international labor market. In spite of immense wealth, derived from high oil prices, in the earthly vale of tears, the worker's miserable pittance of a wage barely covers the  daily reproduction of its obsolete physical labor force.

On the world market, the intelligentsia, the 'intellectual laborers', using machines and computers are driving millions of physical workers out of existence. Less than two percent of the global, globalized working classes , the intellectual workers produce about 80 percent of the major goods, mainly traded among metropolitan States; 50 percent of these products are bellicose merchandise, concern all types of arms of mass destruction.

As predicted by Marx in 'Capital', over the last decades, the geometric progression of pauperization on a global scale, is now even devouring the middle classes of the USA and Europe. In addition, the organic composition of capital has escalated dramatically. Inexorably living physical labor forces are being  replaced by machines, computers and chips, this means that our use- and exchange-values in the South have depreciated by leaps and bounds; millions of us are being thrown onto the streets to perish as a result of famine, poverty, misery and plagues. .

This means that also here in Venezuela we survive and vegetate in a heavily guarded "free"world order, in reality, in a closed labor hell, in the capitalist process of human production, in imperialist destruction, in fact, in universal, unilateral corporate history.

What we cannot achieve objectively as billions of individual physical beings, we can reach as subjective social beings and existences. Ernst Bloch said it in the following manner: Thinking is venturing beyond. As actors and thinkers, objectively and subjectively, as human beings and existences, as a class conscious proletariat, we, the Venezuelan workers, we, the 'wretched of the earth' could break out of our "

This is why the Bolivarian revolution was born more than a decade ago, why we have launched Bolivarian socialism. It is a social revolutionary mass upheaval against already existent globalized barbarism. Now, those of us who encounter ourselves at the vanguard of social and socialist revolution, immediately sense when we are getting off track. In the epoch of globalization, in such trying and dangerous times, in the fierce class struggle,  very easily we can fall in potholes, can get entangled in the ferocious tentacles of corporate imperialism.

The Bolivarian revolution, the struggle to establish socialism on a world scale, is a gigantic task. It necessitates critical revolutionaries in word and deed. There is one world outlook, namely, scientific, socialist, sapient socialism, Marxism, that is not afraid of self-critique, of the truth; it is the only living philosophy within global fascism that still could guide us towards real human emancipation.

VHEADLINE– TRINICENTER.COM -- CMAQ
http://www.cmaq.net/node/30787
http://www.trinicenter.com/index1.php
http://vheadlinevenezuelaenespanol.blogspot.com/2008/08/venezuela-
una-exgesis-filosfica-de-las.html
Traducido por Jesús Nery Barrios
franzjutta@cantv.net.

**** Cementando la soberanía nacional, con la recuperación de las industrias vitales

 
Por: José Antonio Velásquez Montaño.

articulojoseantonio@hotmail.com
articulojoseantonio@gmail.com

Las inagotables reuniones del gobierno con CEMEX, llegaron a su fin; la propuesta de compensación ofrecida por el gobierno de Venezuela de 650 millones de dólares, no satisfizo las elevadas aspiraciones de  Cementos Mexicanos (Cemex) con respecto a lo que Cemex cree que tiene que pagar Venezuela por la venta de los activos Cemex-Venezuela; y amenazó este miércoles 20 de agosto de 2008 al gobierno de la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela; que acudirá al arbitraje internacional presentando una demanda ante el Centro Internacional para el Arreglo de Diferencias por Inversiones (CIADI); la transnacional exigía1.300 millones de dólares por los activos de la empresa en suelo venezolano, mientras que el gobierno venezolano afirma que no valían más de 650 millones de dólares, y es a raíz de esta afirmación que la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela le hace la justa oferta de 650 millones de dólares por los activo de CEMEX. Para los asesores del ministro de Finanzas, y para el mismísimo ministro Alí Rodríguez Araque, los activos de la cementera no llegarían a los 400 millones de dólares debido al pésimo manejo ambiental de muchas de sus plantas en la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela.

A raíz de esta situación el gobierno de la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela, cumpliendo con los requisitos de Ley; expirando el plazo previsto para llegar al acuerdo de compra de los activos de la trasnacional; no llegándose a ninguno por parte de la cementera mexicana; esta misma semana decidió expropiar los activos de la cementera.

Hay un dicho muy criollo que dice “en guerra avisada no muere soldado” en días pasado nuestro Comandante Presidente, Hugo Rafael Chávez Chávez, había anunciado la nacionalización de ese sector que consideraba estratégico para el país; se realizaron las Mil y una reunión, para llegar a un acuerdo, pero, no se pudo.

El trabajo sostenido para recuperar las industrias ó empresas venezolanas seguirá siendo una de las prioridades del Gobierno Revolucionario, a pesar de los constantes ataques provenientes de los partidos políticos de los medios de comunicación privados nacionales e internacionales; camaradas es sabido por todos, que la oposición un hecho rutinario quieren convertirlo en algo alarmante, para tratar de desestabilizar a el gobierno nacional; importándole un pepino el esfuerzo realizado para recuperar cueste lo que cueste las industria ó empresas venezolanas, la oposición apatrida lleva el mismo guión y hasta el mismo ritmo utilizado en Abril-2002, para tratar de echar sombra al Gobierno Bolivariano de la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela.

 

Sabemos camaradas que estos ataques contra el Gobierno de la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela, contra nuestro Comandante Presidente Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, y con nuestro pueblo mismo no son producto de la casualidad, sino de acciones impulsadas por el Gobierno de Washington.

Este es un llamado a la oposición recalcitrante apatrida, que tengan en cuenta, que lo que van a lograr con este tipo de acciones es que nuestro comandante presidente acelere la campaña de recuperación de hasta el último grado de soberanía venezolana sobre el manejo de las trasnacionales sobre empresas o industrias venezolanas.

 

Patria Socialismo o Muerte  Venceremos

**** Medalla de Oro para Vladímir Putin

Heinz Dieterich
Rebelión


Con el Primer Ministro ruso Vladímir Putin en los juegos olímpicos de Beijing, y el Presidente ruso Dmítri Medvedev de vacaciones, el duo Bush-Cheney decidió que era el momento idóneo para liquidar militarmente a la zona autónoma de Ossetia del Sur; repetir después la operación en la zona autónoma de Abkazia e integrar, finalmente, a su anexo neocolonial Georgia en el Bloque de Poder de la burguesía transatlántica y su brazo armado, la OTAN.

Fiel a su condición de siervo político, el "Presidente" neocolonial de Georgia, Mijail Saakashvili ejecutó la autorización de Bush-Cheney para cometer el peor crimen que conoce el derecho internacional: la guerra de agresión. Mintiendo descaradamente sobre una supuesta "tregua" en Ossetia, el delincuente político lanzó sorpresivamente a su soldadesca ---entrenada por instructores estadounidenses--- contra la zona autónoma, donde cometió un sinnúmero de crímenes de lesa humanidad contra la población civil.

La camarilla Bush-Cheney-Saakashvili incurrió, sin embargo, en el grave error de subestimar a Putin. El ex estudiante de derecho, quien había realizado en la Universidad de Leningrado su tesis sobre la política imperialista de Washington en África, para después ingresar a la dirección de Asuntos Exteriores de la KGB y practicar sus conocimientos en una unidad soviética de investigación política y militar en Dresden, en la RDA , conoce al monstruo imperial a fondo y reaccionó magistralmente ante la conspiración imperial-oligárquica.

Aplastó con rapidez y eficiencia militar a las hordas militares de Saakashvili, pese a los refuerzos militares traídos por el Pentágono, desde Irak. Cuando Saakashvili ofreció una tregua unilateral, no la aceptó. Aprovechó su ventaja militar para consolidar las posiciones rusas en el campo de batalla. Terminada esta fase firmó una tregua con Georgia orquestada por el operador transatlántico y politplayboy Sarkozy. Signado el papel, procedió a ocupar militarmente la estratégica ciudad Grosi. Y cuando el imperialismo empezó a movilizar su maquina militar y mediática mundial para responder, simplemente paró las maniobras militares para llevar el conflicto a la dimensión política-diplomática.

El complejo militar-industrial estadounidense se quedó atónito ante el impecable software de defensa antiimperialista y las jugadas maestras del ex abogado. Oficiales del Pentágono revelaron que no habían contado con una reacción tan rápida y contundente de su adversario. Condoleezza Rice, la Secretaria imperial de Relaciones Exteriores, advirtió ayer a Putin que Rusia ya no es lo que fue la Unión Soviética. Tiene razón, pero se le olvida que Estados Unidos tampoco ya es, lo que fue en 1990 y que el abogado Putin de la exKGB no es el inepto soñador de Gorbachev, ni el borracho neocolonial de Yeltsin.

La lección principal del conflicto para América Latina es esa: las conspiraciones imperial-oligárquicas no se derrotan con buenas intenciones, sino con el poder real disuasivo y destructivo que pueden movilizar las fuerzas de emancipación. Lo demás es folklore.
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=71480

**** Bush dispatches US military forces to Georgia

by Barry Grey

Global Research, August 14, 2008
wsws.org
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In a major escalation of the conflict with Russia over Georgia, President George W. Bush on Wednesday announced a "vigorous and ongoing" deployment of US military forces to its key ally in the Caucasus. Bush appeared in the White House Rose Garden for the second time in three days, this time flanked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and announced the military buildup, casting it as a humanitarian relief operation.

Even as he spoke of a humanitarian mission, Bush made clear the military dimensions of the measures he was announcing. He said he was directing Pentagon chief Gates to lead the mission, which would be "headed by the United States military." He announced that a C-17 military aircraft was already on its way to Georgia and that "in the days ahead we will use US aircraft, as well as naval forces, to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies."

This is a formula for an injection of US military and naval forces into Georgia of indeterminate scope and duration. It will certainly involve the presence of hundreds if not thousands of uniformed US military personnel on the ground, and a substantial number of warships in the region. The US is introducing this military force into a situation that remains highly unstable and combustible, raising the possibility of a direct military clash between the United States and Russia.

Bush spoke less than a day after Russia and Georgia had agreed provisionally to a cease-fire in their five-day war. The agreement had been brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, acting on behalf of the European Union.

Even as Bush spoke, Russia and Georgia were trading accusations of truce violations, and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili was objecting to provisions of the agreement which, he claimed, failed to prevent the pro-Russian break-away republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from seceding from Georgia.

In his remarks, Bush issued an implicit threat against any attempt by Russia to interfere with Washington's "humanitarian" operation. "We expect Russia to honor its commitment," he said, "to let in all forms of humanitarian assistance. We expect Russia to ensure that all lines of communications and transport, including seaports, airports, roads and airspace, remain open for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and for civilian transit."

The US will pour military resources into Georgia to strengthen its hand against Russia, and denounce any objections by Moscow as an attack on humanitarian aid and a violation of the cease-fire agreement.

Within minutes of Bush's Rose Garden statement, Saakashvili spelled out its essential meaning in a televised address from Tbilisi. "You have heard the statement by the US president that the United States is starting a military-humanitarian operation in Georgia," he said. "It means that Georgian ports and airports will be taken under the control of the US defense ministry..."

He went on to call Bush's "relief" mission a "turning point," and characterized its import as "definitely an American military presence."

Bush also announced that Rice would immediately travel to France to meet with Sarkozy and then go to Georgia. Employing the rhetoric of the Cold War, he said Rice would meet with Saakashvili and "continue our efforts to rally the free world in defense of a free Georgia."

He further threatened Russia with diplomatic and political sanctions, suggesting it might be excluded from the G-8 group of industrialized nations and prevented from joining the World Trade Organization.

Hypocrisy

Bush's remarks were drenched with hypocrisy. He reiterated Washington's support for Georgian control of the disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, invoking once again the "sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia." Neither he nor any other American spokesperson has explained why Georgia's use of murderous violence against South Ossetia in its indiscriminate shelling of the region's capital city was a legitimate defense of "territorial integrity," while Serbia's use of force against Kosovan secessionists was a war crime.

The US seized on Serbia's moves against CIA-backed separatists in Kosovo to carry out a ten-week air war, under the auspices of NATO, in 1999. While Washington decries Russia's "disproportionate" use of force against Georgian troops which attacked South Ossetia and condemns Moscow for military action beyond the borders of the breakaway republic, the US and NATO rained bombs and missiles on virtually all parts of Serbia, demolishing bridges, water pumping stations, electricity grids, government buildings, housing developments, schools and hospitals in the capital city of Belgrade. The US and NATO killed far more civilians in its campaign to crush Serbia, a traditional ally of Russia, than have been killed by both sides in the current fighting in the Caucasus.

The US has absolutely no political or moral standing to denounce Russia or anyone else for deploying military force. Washington asserts an unlimited and unilateral right to mobilize its massive apparatus of military violence wherever and whenever it wishes, spreading death and destruction from the Persian Gulf to Central Asia and threatening even more bloody conflagrations.

In the current conflict, the US government and media have cast Russia as the aggressor. There is no progressive content to Moscow's actions in Georgia. They are motivated by the predatory aims of the Russian ruling elite, which is intent on reasserting Russian control over territories on its border that it dominated for centuries. However, the eruption of war in the Caucasus is the outcome of a policy pursued by US imperialism since the breakup of the Soviet Union whose ultimate aim is the reduction of Russia to a semi-colonial status.

It is inconceivable that Washington was not intimately involved in the preparations for Georgia's attack on South Ossetia. US military advisers virtually run the military of what Washington considers its key ally in the Cacausus, a strategically critical bridgehead between the oil-rich Caspian Basin and Western Europe.

Just one month ago Secretary of State Rice visited Tbilisi and reaffirmed US support for Georgia's admission to NATO, a development which Russia considers an intolerable threat to its security. Rice's visit was followed by a massive three-week military training exercise, in which 1,000 US troops participated.

The incendiary measures announced by Bush on Wednesday represent the response of American imperialism to the major setback it has suffered as a result of Russia's military intervention in Georgia. There is great concern within the US ruling elite that Russia's routing of Georgia will undermine Washington's drive to displace Russia from Moscow's former spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and establish American hegemony over the Eurasian land mass.

US policy makers worry that the example of Georgia will weaken US control over right-wing client regimes it has established in a whole number of countries that were either part of the Soviet Union, such as Georgia and Ukraine, or allied to the Soviet Union through the Warsaw Pact.

A pattern of provocation

From the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 to the present, the United States has carried out a policy of militarily encircling Russia and surrounding it with hostile states dependent upon and subservient to Washington.

As the USSR was disintegrating, the United States launched its first war against Iraq, a key ally of the Soviet Union in the Middle East. During the 1990s, the US and Western Europe sponsored the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in order to isolate and weaken the Russian ally Serbia.

In 1998, the US spearheaded the incorporation into NATO, the US-dominated military alliance, of a whole number of newly independent states that had been either part of the Soviet Union or allied to it through the Warsaw Pact, including Estonia, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria.

In 1999 the US launched the air war against Serbia. At the same time, the US organized the construction of a new pipeline to transport oil from the Caspian Basin, via Baku, through Georgia to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, bypassing Russian territory.

In 2002, the US set up military bases in the former Central Asian Soviet republics of Uzbekistan (since then closed at the insistence of the Uzbek government) and Kyrgyzstan. At the end of 2003, the US engineered the "Rose Revolution" that brought Saakashvili to power in Georgia. In 2004, NATO admitted a new group of states formerly aligned with Russia—Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. One year later Washington orchestrated the "Orange Revolution" that toppled a pro-Russian government in Ukraine and replaced it with a pro-American regime.

The final chapter in this assault on the strategic position of Russia was the recognition last February of Kosova's bid for independence from Serbia.

Until now, the US has encountered no serious resistance. The events of the past week represent a major shift. For the first time, Russia, flush with oil money and able to exploit the overextended state of the US military, with its massive commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, pushed back.

This has evoked an apoplectic response in the American ruling elite, which has no intention of accepting a diminution of its influence in the regions formerly dominated by the Soviet Union. US imperialism will react by immensely escalating its confrontation with Russia, no matter what the cost.

There is also a domestic component to the US escalation of tensions with Russia. The Bush administration is consciously seeking to create an atmosphere of international crisis in the run-up to the November presidential election. It calculates that an election held in an environment of fear and insecurity will boost the electoral chances of the Republican candidate John McCain.

McCain has based his campaign on his military background and his supposed foreign policy experience. From early on, he has called for a more combative stance toward Russia, and has responded to the Georgia crisis by demanding Russia's ejection from the G-8 and other punitive measures.

The Wall Street Journal in an editorial on Wednesday summed up the demand of sections of the ruling elite and elements within the Bush administration for a major and permanent shift to something like a new Cold War against Russia. The newspaper wrote: "Reshaping US policy toward Russia will take longer than the months between now and January 20, when a new president takes office. But Mr. Bush can at least atone for his earlier misjudgments about Mr. Putin and steer policy in a new direction that his successor would have to deal with."

There are, in fact, only relatively minor tactical differences between McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama on US policy toward Russia. Both continue to demand the admission of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, which would put the US-led military alliance on the very doorstep of Russia. Had Georgia already been a member of NATO, the alliance would have been legally bound to intervene militarily in its defense following Russia's incursion into South Ossetia.

The trajectory of the imperialist drive to carve up the world, spearheaded by US imperialism's mad drive for global hegemony, is ominously clear. The American ruling elite will drag American workers and all of humanity into a catastrophe unless it is stopped. The only social force capable of achieving this is the international working class, united in the struggle to put an end to capitalism, the source of imperialist war, on the basis of a revolutionary socialist program.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9829
 

*** Deutsche Bank Writedowns Exceed $11 Billion

Global Research, August 2, 2008
Reuters - 2008-07-31

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FRANKFURT -- Deutsche Bank AG announced fresh writedowns on Thursday, taking its bill from the global financial crisis beyond $11 billion.

Germany's flagship financier had originally been seen as one of the few to emerge unscathed from the crisis, but as the problems on global markets continue Deutsche Bank is being sucked ever deeper into trouble.

The group's pretax profit collapsed in the second quarter to 642 million euros ($1 billion) — a fraction of the 2.7 billion euros it made a year earlier — as writedowns ate into its bottom line.

Deutsche listed its latest injuries from the global crisis, saying it made 1 billion euros of writedowns in residential mortgage-backed securities and a further 500 million euros linked to monoline insurers which insure against bond defaults.

Commercial real estate investments cost it 300 million.

Its bill from the turmoil, while modest compared to Swiss rival UBS AG, has overtaken that of its Zurich-based competitor Credit Suisse Group AG, which has made about $8 billion of writedowns.

The extra damage in the second quarter, however, had been broadly expected and Deutsche's shares were just 0.4 percent lower at 3:24 a.m. EDT, in line with European rivals.

"We remain cautious for the remainder of 2008," said Chief Executive Josef Ackermann, who also chairs top global banking group the Institute of International Finance.

His remarks contrast with his bullish statements of the past. As late as last November, Ackermann signaled he saw no further writedowns and stood by his goal of making a pretax profit of 8.4 billion euros this year, a target that has since been quietly dropped.

So far this year, the bank has made roughly 400 million euros.

Konrad Becker, an analyst with Merck Finck, said: "the writedowns are the decisive point and show that the crisis lingers ... But the results, if you look at costs and interest income, for example, are better than expected."

Deutsche's wage bill fell by almost one third to almost 2.7 billion euros in the second quarter as bonus payouts fell.

INVESTMENT BANKING

Many investors believe Deutsche is over-reliant on investment banking, which is suffering as the liquidity which oils international financial markets dries up.

Credit Suisse, for example, can fall back on its business managing the money of the world's rich, which accounted for roughly 40 percent of profits even in the investment banking bull years.

Deutsche Bank, by contrast, earned almost two thirds of pretax profit in 2006 from investment banking.

Its investment banking business dipped into the red in the second quarter this year, making a loss of 311 million euros after the writedowns.

Investor concern is reflected in Deutsche's share price. It is trading on a price earnings ratio of about 6 — making it cheaper than its Swiss rival, which is priced above 8 times.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9731

*** Deutsche Bank Writedowns Exceed $11 Billion

*** War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation?

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, August 10, 2008


During the night of August 7, coinciding with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Georgia's president Saakashvili ordered an all-out military attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia.

The aerial bombardments and ground attacks were largely directed against civilian targets including residential areas, hospitals and the university. The provincial capital Tskhinvali was destroyed. The attacks resulted in some 1500 civilian deaths, according to both Russian and Western sources.  "The air and artillery bombardment left the provincial capital without water, food, electricity and gas. Horrified civilians crawled out of the basements into the streets as fighting eased, looking for supplies." (AP, August 9, 2008). According to reports, some 34,000 people from South Ossetia have fled to Russia. (Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake City, August 10, 2008)

The importance and timing of this military operation must be carefully analyzed. It has far-reaching implications.

Georgia is an outpost of US and NATO forces, on the immediate border of the Russian Federation and within proximity of the Middle East Central Asian war theater. South Ossetia is also at the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipeline routes.






Georgia does not act militarily without the assent of Washington. The Georgian head of State is a US proxy and Georgia is a de facto US protectorate. 

Who is behind this military agenda? What interests are being served? What is the purpose of the military operation.

There is evidence that the attacks were carefully coordinated by the US military and NATO.

Moscow has accused NATO of "encouraging Georgia". Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underscored the destabilizing impacts of "foreign" military aid to Georgia: .

    "It all confirms our numerous warnings addressed to the international community that it is necessary to pay attention to massive arms purchasing by Georgia during several years. Now we see how these arms and Georgian special troops who had been trained by foreign specialists are used," he said.(Moscow accuses NATO of having "encouraged Georgia" to attack South Ossetia, Russia Today, August 9, 2008)

Moscow's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, sent an official note to the representatives of all NATO member countries: 

    "Russia has already begun consultations with the ambassadors of the NATO countries and consultations with NATO military representatives will be held tomorrow," Rogozin said. "We will caution them against continuing to further support of Saakashvili."

    "It is an undisguised aggression accompanied by a mass propaganda war," he said.

    (See Moscow accuses NATO of having "encouraged Georgia" to attack South Ossetia, Russia Today, August 9, 2008)

According to Rogozin, Georgia had initially planned to:

    "start military action against Abkhazia, however, 'the Abkhaz fortified region turned out to be unassailable for Georgian armed formations, therefore a different tactic was chosen aimed against South Ossetia', which is more accessible territorially. The envoy has no doubts that Mikheil Saakashvili had agreed his actions with "sponsors", "those with whom he is negotiating Georgia's accession to NATO ". (RIA Novosti, August 8, 2008)

Contrary to what was conveyed by Western media reports, the attacks were anticipated by Moscow. The attacks were timed to coincide with the opening of the Olympics, largely with a view to avoiding frontpage media coverage of the Georgian military operation.

On August 7, Russian forces were in an advanced state readiness. The counterattack was swiftly carried out.

Russian paratroopers were sent in from Russia's Ivanovo, Moscow and Pskov airborne divisions. Tanks, armored vehicles and several thousand ground troops have been deployed. Russian air strikes have largely targeted military facilities inside Georgia including the Gori military base.

The Georgian military attack was repelled with a massive show of strength on the part of the Russian military.
 



In this image made from television, Russian military vehicles are seen moving towards the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, on Friday, Aug. 8, 2008. (AP / APTN)

Act of Provocation?

US-NATO military and intelligence planners invariably examine various "scenarios" of a proposed military operation-- i.e. in this case, a limited Georgian attack largely directed against civilian targets, with a view to inflicting civilian casualties.

The examination of scenarios is a routine practice. With limited military capabilities, a Georgian victory and occupation of Tskhinvali, was an impossibility from the outset. And this was known and understood to US-NATO military planners. 
A humanitarian disaster rather than a military victory was an integral part of the scenario. The objective was to destroy the provincial capital, while also inflicting a significant loss of human life.

If the objective were to restore Georgian political control over the provincial government, the operation would have been undertaken in a very different fashion, with Special Forces occupying key public buildings, communications networks and provincial institutions, rather than waging an all out bombing raid on residential areas, hospitals, not to mention Tskhinvali's University.


Tskhinvali's University before the bombing

The Russian response was entirely predictable.

Georgia was "encouraged" by NATO and the US. Both Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels were acutely aware of what would happen in the case of a Russian counterattack.

The question is: was this a deliberate provocation intended to trigger a Russian military response and suck the Russians into a broader military confrontation with Georgia (and allied forces) which could potentially escalate into an all out war?

Georgia has the third largest contingent of coalition forces in Iraq after the US and the UK, with some 2000 troops.  According to reports, Georgian troops in Iraq are now being repatriated in US military planes, to fight Russian forces. (See Debka.com, August 10, 2008)

This US decision to repatriate Georgian servicemen suggests that Washington is intent upon an escalation of the conflict, where Georgian troops are to be used as cannon fodder against a massive deployment of Russian forces.

US-NATO and Israel Involved in the Planning of the Attacks

In mid-July, Georgian and U.S. troops held a joint military exercise entitled "Immediate Response" involving respectively 1,200 US and 800 Georgian troops.

The announcement by the Georgian Ministry of Defense on July 12 stated that they US and Georgian troops were to "train for three weeks at the Vaziani military base" near the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. (AP, July 15, 2008). These exercises, which were completed barely a week before the August 7 attacks, were an obvious dress rehearsal of a military operation, which, in all likelihood, had been planned in close cooperation with the Pentagon.

The war on Southern Ossetia was not meant to be won, leading to the restoration of Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia. It was intended to destabilize the region while also triggering a US-NATO confrontation with Russia. 

On July 12, coinciding with the outset of the Georgia-US war games, the Russian Defense Ministry started its own military maneuvers in the North Caucasus region. The usual disclaimer by both Tblisi and Moscow: the military exercises have "nothing to do" with the situation in South Ossetia. (Ibid)

Let us be under no illusions. This is not a civil war. The attacks are an integral part of the broader Middle East Central Asian war, including US-NATO-Israeli war preparations in relation to Iran.

The Role of Israeli Military Advisers

While NATO and US military advisers did not partake in the military operation per se, they were actively involved in the planning and logistics of the attacks. According to Israeli sources (Debka.com, August 8, 2008), the ground assault on August 7-8, using tanks and artillery was "aided by Israeli military advisers". Israel also supplied Georgia with Hermes-450 and Skylark unmanned aerial vehicles, which were used in the weeks leading up to the August 7 attacks.

Georgia has also acquired, according to a report in Rezonansi (August 6, in Georgian, BBC translation) "some powerful weapons through the upgrade of Su-25 planes and artillery systems in Israel". According to Haaretz (August 10, 2008), Israelis are active in military manufacturing and security consulting in Georgia.

Russian forces are now directly fighting a NATO-US trained Georgian army integrated by US and Israeli advisers. And Russian warplanes have attacked the military jet factory on the outskirts of Tbilisi, which produces the upgraded Su-25 fighter jet, with technical support from Israel. (CTV.ca, August 10, 2008)

When viewed in the broader context of the Middle East war, the crisis in Southern Ossetia could lead to escalation, including a direct confrontation between Russian and NATO forces. If this were to occur, we would be facing the most serious crisis in US-Russian relations since the Cuban Missile crisis in October 1962.

Georgia: NATO-US Outpost

Georgia is part of a NATO military alliance (GUAM) signed in April 1999 at the very outset of the war on Yugoslavia. It also has a bilateral military cooperation agreement with the US. These underlying military agreements have served to protect Anglo-American oil interests in the Caspian sea basin as well as pipeline routes.

Both the US and NATO have a military presence in Georgia and are working closely with the Georgian Armed Forces. Since the signing of the 1999 GUAM agreement, Georgia has been the recipient of extensive US military aid.

Barely a few months ago, in early May, the Russian Ministry of Defense accused Washington, "claiming that [US as well as NATO and Israeli] military assistance to Georgia is destabilizing the region." (Russia Claims Georgia in Arms Buildup, Wired News, May 19, 2008). According to the Russian Defense Ministry

    "Georgia has received 206 tanks, of which 175 units were supplied by NATO states, 186 armored vehicles (126 - from NATO) , 79 guns (67 - from NATO) , 25 helicopters (12 - from NATO) , 70 mortars, ten surface-to-air missile systems, eight Israeli-made unmanned aircraft, and other weapons. In addition, NATO countries have supplied four combat aircraft to Georgia. The Russian Defense Ministry said there were plans to deliver to Georgia 145 armored vehicles, 262 guns and mortars, 14 combat aircraft including four Mirazh-2000 destroyers, 25 combat helicopters, 15 American Black Hawk aircraft, six surface-to-air missile systems and other arms." (Interfax News Agency, Moscow, in Russian, Aug 7, 2008)

NATO-US-Israeli assistance under formal military cooperation agreements involves a steady flow of advanced military equipment as well as training and consulting services.

According to US military sources (spokesman for US European Command), the US has more than 100 "military trainers" in Georgia. A Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman "said there were no plans to redeploy the estimated 130 US troops and civilian contractors, who he said were stationed in the area around Tblisi" (AFP, 9 August 2008). In fact, US-NATO military presence in Georgia is on a larger scale to that acknowledged in official statements. The number of NATO personnel in Georgia acting as trainers and military advisers has not been confirmed.

Although not officially a member of NATO, Georgia's military is full integrated into NATO procedures.  In 2005, Georgian president proudly announced the inauguration of the first military base, which "fully meets NATO standards". Immediately following the inauguration of the Senakskaya base in west Georgia, Tblisi announced the opening of a second military base at Gori which would  also "comply with NATO regulations in terms of military requirements as well as social conditions." (Ria Novosti, 26 May 2006).

The Gori base has been used to train Georgian troops dispatched to fight under US command in the Iraq war theater.

It is worth noting that under a March 31, 2006, agreement between Tblisi and Moscow, Russia's two Soviet-era military bases in Georgia - Akhalkalaki and Batumi have been closed down. (Ibid)  The pullout at Batumi commenced in May of last year, 2007. The last remaining Russian troops left the Batumi military facility in early July 2008, barely a week before the commencement of the US-Georgia war games and barely a month prior to the attacks on South Ossetia. 

The Israel Connection

Israel is now part of the Anglo-American military axis, which serves the interests of the Western oil giants in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Israel is a partner in the Baku-Tblisi- Ceyhan pipeline which brings oil and gas to the Eastern Mediterranean. More than 20 percent of Israeli oil is imported from Azerbaijan, of which a large share transits through the BTC pipeline. Controlled by British Petroleum, the BTC pipeline has dramatically changed the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucusus:

    "[The BTC pipeline] considerably changes the status of the region's countries and cements a new pro-West alliance. Having taken the pipeline to the Mediterranean, Washington has practically set up a new bloc with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Israel, " (Komerzant, Moscow, 14 July 2006)



While the official reports state that the BTC pipeline will "channel oil to Western markets", what is rarely acknowledged is that part of the oil from the Caspian sea would be directly channeled towards Israel, via Georgia. In this regard, a Israeli-Turkish pipeline project has also been envisaged which would link Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon and from there through Israel's main pipeline system, to the Red Sea.

The objective of Israel is not only to acquire Caspian sea oil for its own consumption needs but also to play a key role in re-exporting Caspian sea oil back to the Asian markets through the Red Sea port of Eilat. The strategic implications of this re-routing of Caspian sea oil are far-reaching. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 2006)

What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel's Tipline, from Ceyhan to the Israeli port of Ashkelon.

    "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 new Turkish-Israeli proposal under discussion would see the transfer of water, electricity, natural gas and oil to Israel via four underwater pipelines.

    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961328841&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

    "Baku oil can be transported to Ashkelon via this new pipeline and to India and the Far East.[via the Red sea]"

    "Ceyhan and the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon are situated only 400 km apart. Oil can be transported to the city in tankers or via specially constructed under-water pipeline. From Ashkelon the oil can be pumped through already existing pipeline to the port of Eilat at the Red Sea; and from there it can be transported to India and other Asian countries in tankers. (REGNUM)

In this regard, Israel is slated to play a major strategic role in "protecting" the Eastern Mediterranean transport and pipeline corridors out of Ceyhan. Concurrently, it also involved in channeling military aid and training to both Georgia and Azerbaijan.

A far-reaching 1999 bilateral military cooperation agreement between Tblisi and Tel Aviv was reached barely a month before the NATO sponsored GUUAM agreement. It was signed in Tbilisi by President Shevardnadze and Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyu. These various military cooperation arrangements are ultimately intended to undermine Russia's presence and influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In a pro forma declaration, Tel Aviv committed itself, following bilateral discussions with Moscow, on August 5, 2008, to cut back military assistance to Georgia.

Russia's Response

In response to the attacks, Russian forces intervened with conventional ground troops. Tanks and armored vehicles were sent in. The Russian air force was also involved in aerial counter-attacks on Georgian military positions including the military base of Gori.

The Western media has portrayed the Russian as solely responsible for the deaths of civilians, yet at the same time the Western media has acknowledged (confirmed by the BBC) that most of the civilian casualties at the outset were the result of the Georgian ground and air attacks.

Based on Russian and Western sources, the initial death toll in South Ossetia was at least 1,400 (BBC) mostly civilians.  "Georgian casualty figures ranged from 82 dead, including 37 civilians, to a figure of around 130 dead.... A Russian air strike on Gori, a Georgian town near South Ossetia, left 60 people dead, many of them civilians, Georgia says." (BBC, August 9, 2008). Russian sources place the number of civilian deaths in South Ossetia at 2000.

A process of escalation and confrontation between Russia and America is unfolding, reminiscent of the Cold War era.

Are we dealing with an act of provocation, with a view to triggering a broader conflict?  Supported by media propaganda, the Western military alliance is intent on using this incident to confront Russia, as evidenced by recent NATO statements.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9788

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"Naval Blockade" or All Out War Against Iran?

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, August 13, 2008


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Author's Note

Shortly after this article was released on August 13, US military sources as well as Stratfor (a Strategic Studies Think Tank) stated that the various press reports (UPI, Middle East Times, Kuwait Times, Debka) regarding the naval deployment to the Middle East were incorrect.

According to the press reports (see UPI, August 11, 2008), the war ships involved in the "Operation Brimstone" war games off the US North Atlantic coast, had set sail for the Middle East. This information is apparently incorrect, according to the US Navy and Stratfor. 

It is worth noting that the Kuwaiti government had activated emergency procedures based on the information pertaining to a major naval deployment in the Persian Gulf.

Based on the movement and location of USS carrier and expeditionary strike forces, the Bush administration has not decided to carry out a naval surge directed against Iran immediately following the conduct of the North Atlantic War Games,

The eventuality of a naval blockade directed against Iran is nonetheless being considered by the Pentagon. In fact, the naval blockade initiative is supported by a bill which was launched in the US Congress in late May. (See below for details).

We have checked the most recent information regarding the movements and location of the various USS Carrier and Expeditionary Strike Groups.

The text first released on August 13 has been revised. Corrections, and updates to the text are indicated. 

We will provide further updates and analysis as more information becomes available.

Michel Chossudovsky, August 14, 2008

The Bush administration is envisaging the possibility of launching a naval blockade directed against Iran.

Extensive war games were held off the US Atlantic Coastline under "Operation Brimstone" in late July.

These war games were activated shortly after the submission in the US House of Representatives (May 22), of a bill (H CON 362) which called upon the Bush administration to carry out an economic blockade directed against Iran.
"Operation Brimstone": North Atlantic Ocean War Games

Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) 08-4 'Operation Brimstone' commenced on July 21 in North Carolina and off the Eastern US Atlantic coast from Virginia to Florida. Of significance was the participation of British, French, Brazilian and Italian naval forces as part of a multinational US naval exercise directed against Iran.

More than a dozen ships participated in the naval exercise including the USS Theodore Roosevelt and its Carrier Strike Group Two, the expeditionary Strike Group Iwo Jima, the French submarine Amethyste, Britain's HMS Illustrious Carrier Strike Group, Brazil's navy frigate Greenhalgh and Italy's ITS Salvatore Todaro (S 526) submarine. (See Middle East Times, August 11, 2008 , Dailypress.com, July 28, 2008 , www.mt-milcom.blogspot.com)  

Stating the purpose of a war game and identifying the real "foreign enemy" by name is not the normal practice, unless there is a decision to send an unequivocal message to the enemy.

Invariably in war games, the foreign enemy is given a fictitious country name: Irmingham, Nemazee, Rubeck and Churia stand for Iran, North Korea, Russia and China (codes used in the Vigilant Shield 07 War Games' Scenario opposing the US to four fictitious enemies. (See William Arkin, The Vigilant Shield 07 War Games: Scenario opposing the US to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, Washington Post, February 10, 2007)

In the case of "Operation Brimstone", the stated military purpose of the naval exercise is crystal clear: the North Atlantic war games are carried out with a view "to practice enforcing an eventual blockade on Iran". These naval exercises are intended to display US and allied "combat capabilities as a warning to Iran." They are tantamount to a declaration of war:

     "The drill is aimed at training for operation in shallow coastal waters such as the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz."

The USS Theodore Roosevelt equipped with 80-plus combat planes, was carrying an additional load of French Naval Rafale fighter jets from the French carrier Charles de Gaulle. (Ibid). France's E2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft, which was "assigned to the 4th Squadron began flight operations with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8 aboard Roosevelt, marking the first integrated U.S. and French carrier qualifications aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier. French Rafale fighter aircraft assigned to the 12th Squadron also joined." Navy.mil, July 24, 2008

Anglo-US war games are a routine practice. What is significant in these large scale naval manoeuvres is the active participation of France, Brazil and Italy in war games which are explicitly directed against Iran.

The participation of these countries in extensive war games points to broad consensus. It also suggests that the participating nations have accepted (in political and military terms) to participate in a US-led military operation directed against Iran. The active participation of France and to a lesser extent Italy also suggests that the European Union is firmly behind the US initiative: 

    "Operations with our friends and allies are the cornerstone of the U.S. Navy's current maritime strategy," said Capt. Ladd Wheeler, Roosevelt's commanding officer. "These combined operations will certainly pay dividends into the future as our navies continue to work together to increase global security."Navy.mil, July 24, 2008

Another important precedent has been set. Brazil's President Luis Ignacio da Silva has ordered the dispatch of the Greenhalgh  Frigate, marking the first time that a Brazilian warship (under a government which claims to be "socialist") has operated as part of a US. strike group in war games directed against a foreign country.

According to the Greenhalgh's Commander Claudio Mello, "It allows us to be one more asset in an international operation." (Pilot Online.com, July 28, 2008)

F46 Grrenhalgh

Brazil's Frigate Greenhalgh dispatched to participate in US War Games

Congressional Initiative

The naval blockade against Iran, which is tantamount to a declaration of war, is a bipartisan project, which has tacitly been endorsed by the Democrats. In May 2008, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives (H.CON. RES 362) that called for the enforcement of an all out economic blockade, including the encroachment of trade and the freeze of monetary transactions with the Islamic Republic:

    "The President [shall] initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran .... prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program."

    "[H. CON. RES. 362] urges the President, in the strongest of terms, to immediately use his existing authority to impose sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran, ... international banks which continue to conduct financial transactions with proscribed Iranian banks; ... energy companies that have invested $20,000,000 or more in the Iranian petroleum or natural gas sector in any given year since the enactment of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996; and all companies which continue to do business with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps." (See full text of H.CON RES 362) (emphasis added)

Meanwhile, H CON RES 362 has been referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. A similar procedure has taken place in the Senate.

Concurrent Military Operations: War in the Caucasus

The planning of  a naval blockade by the Bush administration (Operation Brimstone, H Con 362) occurs at the very outset of an unfolding crisis in the Caucasus, marked by the Georgian air and ground attacks on South Ossetia and Russia's counterattack. The timing and chronology of these related and concurrent military operations is crucial.

We are not dealing with separate and unrelated military events. The war in Georgia is an integral part of US-NATO-Israeli war preparations in relation to Iran.

Georgia does not act militarily without the assent of Washington. The Georgian head of State is a US proxy and Georgia is a de facto US protectorate. 

The attack on South Ossetia was launched by Georgia on the orders of the US and NATO. US military advisers and trainers were actively involved in the planning of Georgia's attacks on the South Ossetia capital. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, War in  the Caucasus, Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation, Global Research, August 10, 2008)

Russia is an ally of Iran.

Russia is currently caught up in a military confrontation with Georgia. The Georgian attack on South Ossetia constitutes an act of provocation directed against Russia. It creates an aura of instability in the Caucasus, marked by heavy civilian casualties. It serves to distract Russia from playing a meaningful diplomatic and military role, which might undermine or obstruct the US-led war plans directed against Iran.

Both Russia and China have bilateral military cooperation agreements with Iran. Russia supplies the Islamic Republic with military hardware and technical expertise in relation to Iran's air defense system and missile program.

Since 2005, Iran has an observer member status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an overlapping military cooperation agreement between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan.

The structure and strength of military alliances is crucial. In the context of US war plans directed against Iran, the US is intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China. In the case of China, Washington is seeking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral ties with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has its headquarters in Beijing.

The Georgian attack on South Ossetia seeks to undermine Russia, which constitutes a significant countervailing military power and ally of Iran.

The ultimate objective is to isolate Iran, cut it off from its powerful allies: China and Russia.

In Washington's mindset, the events in Georgia coupled with media propaganda, can be usefully applied to discredit and weaken Russia prior to the enforcement of a naval blockade on Iran in the Persian Gulf, which could lead into an all out war on Iran. 

This somewhat crude line of reasoning tends, however, to overlook America's own military setbacks and weaknesses as well as the enormous risks to America and the World which could result from a continued and sustained confrontation with Russia, let alone an attack on Iran.  

In view of the evolving situation in Georgia and Moscow's military commitments in the Caucasus, military analysts believe that Russia will not protect Iran and encroach upon a US led operation directed against Iran, which would be preceded by a naval blockade. 

In other words, Washington believes that Moscow is unlikely to get actively involved in a showdown with US and allied forces in the Persian Gulf.

Naval Deployment

According to press reports, upon completing the North Atlantic war games on July 31st, the participating warships in "Operation Brimstone" headed for the Middle East, to join up with other carrier strike groups and a constellation of US, British and French war ships.

Which Carrier Strike groups and Expeditionary Forces sailed for the Middle East upon the completion of "Operation Brimstone" remains to be ascertained.

Below we provide the most recent information pertaining to the movement of Carrier Strike Groups and Expeditionary Strike Groups

According to Stratfor and military sources: 

-the USS Iwo Jima and the USS Theodore Roosevelt, according to Stratfor, returned to their home port in Norfolk after concluding participation in JTFEX Operation Brimstone on July 31

 -the nuclear powered USS Ronald Reagan Carrier and its Strike Group Seven; according to Stratfor USS Reagan is currently under way in the South China Sea on a routine deployment in the 7th fleet area of responsibility (AOR) (Indian Ocean and Western Pacific)

-the USS Abraham Lincoln is in the Arabian Sea (confirmed by Strafor, "operations in the 5th fleet AOR, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan", namely Ariabian Sea,

- the USS Peleliu which was in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. (latest news from Stratfor USS Peleliu is in the Arabian Sea, "operations in the 5th fleet AOR, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan")


USS Abraham Lincoln

In other words, there are at present (August 14, 2008) two Strike Groups in the region: USS Abraham Lincoln, northern Arabian Sea, USS Peleliu Strike Group, northern Arabian sea. There is no confirmation as to whether the USS Ronald Reagan is moving towards the Arabian Sea. 

"Maritime Security" to Enforce a Naval Blockade

US Central Command (CENTCOM) under the helm of General Petraeus, coordinates out of Bahrain so-called Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in Middle East waters ( Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, Red Sea and Indian Ocean).

This MSO initiative is conducted by the Combined Maritime Force (CMF) with a powerful armada  of 36 warships.

Established at the outset of the Iraq war, CMF involves the participation of the US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Pakistan.

There are several combined task forces responsible for maritime security (including CTF 150, CTF 152 and the CTF 158 North Arabian Gulf (NAG))

The mandate of the Combined Task Forces  "aims to establish security and stability by countering terrorism in the Middle Eastern maritime environment and allowing legitimate mariners to operate safely in the area..." (see Canadian  Navy, News),

In the present context, this multinational naval alliance, will be used to encroach upon maritime trade with Iran as well as play an active role in implementing the proposed economic blockade of Iran.

Canada has recently deployed three war ships to the Arabian sea, including HMC Iroquois along with HMC Calgary and HMC Protecteur which will be operating under CTF 150, which is responsible for MSO in the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.



Canada's HMC Iroquois, involved in Maritime Security.
Canada currently leads the CTF 150 Task Force

Among the 36 war vessels involved in so-called Maritime Security Operations, are: 

    RBNS Sabha (FFG 90) – The Bahraini flagship of CTF 152 conducting Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in the Central and Southern Arabian Gulf.

    USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) – The U.S. flagship of CTF 50, conducting MSO in the Central and Southern Arabian Gulf , as well as support Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. (currently in the Atlantic Ocean according to Stratfor).

    FS Guepratte (F 714) – French Navy ship operating as part of CTF 150 in the North Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

    USCGC Wrangell (WPB 1332) – One of several USCG 110' patrol boats conducting MSO in the North Arabian Gulf.

    HMAS Arunta (F 151) – Australian Navy ship conducting MSO as part of CTF 158 .

    PNS Tippu Sultan (D 186) – Pakistan Navy ship conducting MSO as part of CTF 150.

    RFA Cardigan Bay (L 3009) – British Royal Navy auxiliary ship operating with CTF 158.

    USS Port Royal (CG 73) – US Navy guided-missile cruiser deployed with USS Tarawa Expeditionary Strike Group.

    Source: US Naval forces, Central  Command, Fifth fleet, Combined Maritime Forces

Naval Blockade

The first stage of a naval blockade directed against Iran would in all likelihood be initiated by Maritime Security Operations (MSO) under USCENTCOM. 

For Iran,  a naval blockade, were it to be implemented, is tantamount to a declaration of war. The blockade constitutes a blatant violation of international law. According to Francis Boyle, a renowned specialist in international law:

"A blockade is an act of war under international and domestic law. A "Blockade" is a term used under international law to specifically refer to belligerent measures taken by a nation for the purposes of preventing the passage of vessels or aircraft to and from another country. Customary international law recognizes blockades as an act of war because of the belligerent use of force even against third party nations in enforcing the blockade. Blockades as acts of war have been recognized as such in the Declaration of Paris of 1856 and the Declaration of London of 1909 that delineate the international rules of warfare."

Meanwhile, war preparations are also being undertaken by Israel and NATO in the Eastern Mediterranean. German war ships are stationed off the Syrian coastline. Turkey which constitutes a major military actor within NATO is a major partner of the US led coalition. It has an extended bilateral military cooperation agreement with Israel. Turkey has borders with both Iran and Syria. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, "Triple Alliance": The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon, Global Research, August 6, 2006)

Pre-emptive Nuclear War

A diabolical and related consensus is emerging at the political level, pointing to the pre-emptive first strike use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East war theater, more concretely against Iran: 

    "In January 2005, at the outset of the military build-up directed against Iran, USSTRATCOM was identified as "the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction."

    To implement this mandate, a brand new command unit entitled  Joint Functional Component Command Space and Global Strike, or JFCCSGS was created.

    JFCCSGS has the mandate to oversee the launching of a nuclear attack in accordance with the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, approved by the US Congress in 2002. The NPR underscores the pre-emptive use of nuclear warheads not only against "rogue states" but also against China and Russia."Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Global Research, January 2006)

More recently, a December 2007 NATO sponsored report entitled "Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership". calls for a first strike pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. The NATO doctrine in this report is a virtual copy and paste version of America's post 9/11 nuclear weapons doctrine as initially outlined in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

(for details, see Michel Chossudovsky, The US-NATO Preemptive Nuclear Doctrine: Trigger a Middle East Nuclear Holocaust to Defend "The Western Way of Life", Global Research, January 2008)

The preemptive use of nukes as formulated in the NATO Transatlantic Partnership document would be used to undermine an "increasingly brutal World" (e.g. Iran) as well as a means to prevent "rogue enemies" to use "weapons of mass destruction".

Under this NATO framework, which is explicitly envisaged in relation to Iran, US and allied forces including Israel would "resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the imminent spread of nuclear weapons, " (quoted in Paul Dibb, Sidney Morning Herald, 11 February 2008).

    "They [the authors of the report] consider that nuclear war might soon become possible in an increasingly brutal world. They propose the first use of nuclear weapons must remain "in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction". (Paul Dibb, op cit) 

In terms of the ongoing threats directed against Iran, a pre-emptive nuclear attack using tactical nuclear weapons, which are according to the Pentagon is "harmless to the surrounding civilian population" could be carried out in relation to Iran, even if if Iran does not possess nuclear weapons capabilities, as confirmed by the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

According to a 2003 Senate decision, the new generation of tactical nuclear weapons or "low yield" "mini-nukes", with an explosive capacity of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb, are now considered "safe for civilians" because the explosion is underground. 

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of "authoritative" nuclear scientists, the mini-nukes are being presented as an instrument of peace rather than war. The low-yield nukes have now been cleared for "battlefield use", they are slated to be used in the next stage of the Middle East war (Iran) alongside conventional weapons:

    "Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states.[Iran, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent."(Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004)

In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing "collateral damage".

The NATO sponsored report --which broadly reflects a growing consensus-- insists that the option of a nuclear first strike is indispensable, "since there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world." (Report, p. 97):

    "Nuclear weapons are the ultimate instrument of an asymmetric response – and at the same time the ultimate tool of escalation"

The US-NATO doctrine to use nukes on a pre-emptive basis against Iran, with a view to "saving the Western World's way of life", is not challenged in any meaningful way by the antiwar movement.

The mainstream media has a strong grip on the public's perception and understanding of the Middle East war. The dangers of nuclear war in the Post cold War era are barely mentioned and when they are, the use of nuclear weapons are justified as a preemptive military option to ensure the security of  Western World.

The truth is twisted and turned upside down.

Media disinformation instills within the consciousness of Americans and Europeans that somehow the war on Iran is a necessity, that Iran is a threat to the Homeland and that the Islamic Republic is supporting Islamic terrorists, who are planning a Second 9/11. And that a pre-emptive nuclear attack is the answer.

In contrast, the powerful economic interests behind the war economy, the Anglo-American oil giants military, the defense contractors, Wall Street are rarely the object of media coverage. The real economic and strategic objectives behind this war are carefully obfuscated.

9/11 is used profusely both by the Bush administration and the media as a justification for waging war, despite the fact that there is mounting evidence of cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

Despite the evidence, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Iran have been portrayed as the "State sponsors of terrorism" and a threat to the Homeland, thereby justifying the various stages of the Middle East military roadmap.  The Project for a New American Century, had already described in a 2000 document the nature of this road map or "long war". What is envisaged is a global war without borders:

         fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars (PNAC, September 2000)

At present US and coalition forces including NATO and Israel are in an advanced state of readiness to launch an attack on Iran. Leaders of the US led coalition including France, Germany and Italy, should understand that such an action could result in a World War III scenario.

Escalation scenarios have already been envisaged and analyzed by the Pentagon.

US sponsored war games have foreseen the possible intervention of Russia and China in the Middle East. World War III has been on the lips of NeoCon architects of US foreign policy from the outset of the Bush regime.

In response to "Operation Brimstone" and the Naval deployment, Iran's Foreign Ministry said that "Tehran will give a 'maximum response' to the slightest threat against the country's national security."

War propaganda, through media disinformation consists in galvanizing US citizens not only in favor of "the war on terrorism", but in support of a social order which repeals the Rule of Law, derogates fundamental civil liberties, upholds the use of torture and establishes a modern police state apparatus as a means to "preserving Western democracy".

There is a tacit public acceptance of a diabolical and criminal military agenda, which in a very sense threatens "the community of nations" and life on this planet.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9817

General Motors cierra su Planta de Valencia

escrito por Ramiro Gutiérrez/DLA Mérida

martes, 19 de agosto de 2008

General Motors de Venezuela emitió este sábado un comunicado en el que pide a sus trabajadores que no se reintegren a la empresa el próximo 18 de agosto, fecha prevista para su retorno post-vacacional, en la Planta Valencia y Post-Venta, pues no se garantiza "la protección física y la integridad" de éstos, luego de que el pasado 28 de julio miembros del Sindicato de Vencedores Socialistas paralizaran las actividades de la empresa y obstaculizaran el acceso a ésta. "Con una conducta violenta e insegura, se han propinado agresiones y amenazas contra trabajadores; así como daños a los vehículos, equipos, maquinarias y materiales de propiedad privada", se afirma en el comunicado. General Motors Venezolana

**** Anuncia que una flota militar rusa visitará Venezuela y arremete contra Georgia

02:23 pm | 17 Ago 2008 | 82 comentarios | 7,953 views

Chávez ha anunciado que una flota militar rusa visitará Venezuela aunque no ha precisado la fecha. Igualmente ha arremetido contra Georgia y ha calificado a su Presidente de "títere del Imperio".

El Presidente ha reafirmado, como ya hiciera en su visita a ese país, que "la flota rusa será siempre bienvenida en Venezuela". Chávez ha contado que Rusia le ha informado que querían visitar nuestro país y, dado que la flota estará cerca, les ha invitado a visitar Venezuela.

"Vengan si quieren que serán bienvenidos", ha afirmado.

Aunque específicamente no ha afirmado que se trataría de una flota militar, cabe suponer que así será, ya que inmediatamente Chávez se ha referido a que está evaluando nuevas compras de armas a Rusia.

Chávez se ha referido también al conflicto de Georgia y ha calificado al Presidente de dicho país de "títere del Imperio".

Para Chávez la culpa del conflicto, como ya manifestó esta semana, la tiene EE.UU. que ordenó a las tropas de Georgia atacar la zona de Osetia del Sur. Según la tesis del presidente venezolano, las tropas de ese país cometieron atrocidades, destruyeron pueblos y atacaron y mataron a civiles.

Ha afirmado que el ataque se hizo el día de la inauguración de los JJ.OO. de Beijing para intentar sabotear los JJ.OO.

"Nosotros estamos con Rusia", ha afirmado tras felicitar a Medvedev y Putin por su actuación.

http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/?p=16747

Venezuela estará protegida por el escudo anti-misiles de EE.UU.

09:13 am | 17 Ago 2008 | 88 comentarios | 14,721 views

El polémico escudo anti-misiles que EE.UU. pretende instalar en Europa para evitar un eventual ataque nuclear protegerá a gran parte del hemisferio norte, entre ellos Venezuela.

La instalación del escudo se ha visto fortalecido este fín de semana después de la decisión de Ucrania de ceder sus radares para tal fín.

Por su parte, Rusia está considerando suministrar armas nucleares a su flota del Mar Báltico por primera vez desde la Guerra Fría, dijeron fuentes militares al periódico británico The Sunday Times.

La medida, una respuesta a los planes estadunidenses de instalar un escudo antimisiles en Europa, exacerbaría las tensiones ya incrementadas por el avance de las tropas rusas a menos de 20 kilómetros de Tbilisi, la capital georgiana, apuntó el rotativo.

De acuerdo con el plan ruso, se dotaría de armas nucleares a submarinos, cruceros y cazabombarderos de la flota del Báltico, que tiene su base en Kaliningrado, un enclave ruso entre Polonia y Lituania, dos países miembros de la Unión Europea.

El diario español El Mundo publica hoy 2 gráficos sobre el escudo.

Aquí puede ver el gráfico más grande:

Así funciona el escudo anti-misiles:

http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/?p=16737

**** Missile agreement with Poland intensifies danger of US-Russian clash

By Patrick Martin
16 August 2008

The agreement between the United States and the right-wing government of Poland to base a US anti-missile system in that country is the first major response of American imperialism to the Russian intervention in Georgia.

The Bush administration has pressed Poland and the Czech Republic to accept US anti-missile systems and radar installations on the pretext that they are being deployed to prevent an attack on Europe by Iran, which possesses neither the required ballistic missile warheads nor nuclear weapons. Despite vehement protests from Moscow, US officials have denied that the anti-missile systems represent a threat to Russia.

However, the circumstances in which the agreement with Poland was signed make clear that it is directed against Moscow. Long stalled by wrangling between Warsaw and Washington over Polish demands for high-tech anti-aircraft systems as the price for basing the missiles, the pact was wrapped up within days of the appearance of Polish President Lech Kaczynski alongside Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at an anti-Russian rally in Tbilisi.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared ominously, “We have crossed the Rubicon,” after representatives of his government signed the accord in Warsaw. It is obvious that his comments were motivated not by fears of a mythical Iranian threat, but by concern over the Russian military, which fought two world wars on Polish soil in the twentieth century.

There are two exceptional features of the accord, added as incentives to Poland. First, the United States will immediately transfer a Patriot anti-missile battery from Germany to Slupsk on the Baltic Sea, about 100 miles from the Polish border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The New York Times noted: “American troops would join the Polish military, at least temporarily, at the front lines—facing east toward Russia.” The 110 American soldiers stationed there will serve as a sort of human tripwire, ensuring that any Polish-Russian conflict quickly involves the United States.

Secondly, the US agreed to an obligation to defend Poland in case of attack with greater speed than required under current procedures of NATO, which Poland joined in March 1999. “Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later—it is no good when assistance comes to dead people,” Prime Minister Tusk said on Polish television. “Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of—knock on wood—any possible conflict.”

Russian officials responded to the US-Polish agreement with apocalyptic language. General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, said that Poland was “exposing itself to a strike, 100 percent.” He noted that Russian military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons, not only against any nation that conducts an attack on Russia with nuclear weapons, but “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them.”

“The USA is busy with its own missile defense system,” he said. “It does not intend to defend Poland at this point. Poland lays itself open to attack by giving the USA permission to deploy the system. The country may become an object of Russia’s reaction. Such targets are destroyed in the first instance.”

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev denounced the agreement at a news conference, where he stood side-by-side with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “The deployment of new anti-missile forces has as its aim the Russian Federation,” he said. “Therefore, any fairy tales about deterring other states, fairy tales that with the help of this system we will deter some sort of rogue states, no longer work.”

The logic of US policy, as the Polish agreement testifies, leads inexorably in the direction of a military confrontation between the United States and Russia, two massively armed nuclear powers. This raises once again, as in the years preceding 1914 and 1939, the specter of world war, this time with the likely consequence of nuclear annihilation.

It is not simply a matter of gauging the intentions of Bush and Cheney, scheduled to leave office in five months, or of their successor, either Obama or McCain. The events and the decisions of the past week have their own logic. The impending insertion of US military forces into what were once called the “buffer states,” the region separating Russia proper from Central Europe, has immense historical and political significance.

This region was the battleground in two world wars, in which tens of millions died—30 million in the Soviet Union alone as a result of the Nazi invasion through the very territory on which US anti-missile systems will now be deployed. (It is worth pointing out as well, that while the historical and political circumstances are different, Hitler’s geo-strategic aim was the same as Bush’s: to gain control of the oil resources of the Caspian basin.)

There are dozens of potential flashpoints in this vast territory—unresolved border disputes between Russia and many of the successor states of the former USSR, as well as conflicts involving Russian-populated enclaves such as Kaliningrad, next to Poland, and Trans-Dniestria, on the Moldova-Ukraine border, and huge Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic states and Ukraine. Any one of these could become the spark for a military conflict in which the United States is now a potential combatant.

The Bush administration has maintained, in a series of leaks to the US media, that it sought to restrain Saakashvili from attacking the pro-Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and that the Georgian president ignored its advice. This version of events is entirely unbelievable, given the integration of US military advisers into the Georgian military command. But even if true, it would mean that Washington has so little control over events that a reckless nationalistic demagogue can use its backing to trigger a major international crisis. Such political arsonists play a major role in every country in Eastern Europe.

As George Friedman of Stratfor.com, a strategic analysis web site, detailed in an article published August 13: “It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. US technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions.”

While Friedman suggests that the apparent surprise of the Bush administration was an expression of its strategic incompetence, there is another and more sinister explanation: the US government wanted the military conflict to erupt, despite the inevitable Georgian rout at the hands of the Russian army, because the crisis would serve its ends, both internationally—viz., Poland—and domestically, where the Republican Party is relying on war fever to bolster its beleaguered presidential campaign.

In the wake of the ceasefire in Georgia, reluctantly signed by Saakashvili Friday with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressuring him in person, it has become even clearer that the week-long American media and diplomatic campaign over alleged Russian aggression is an example of the “big lie” technique.

It now turns out that the scale of the Russian military intervention was relatively small, with a total of 15,000 troops engaged, barely half the number that Georgia has under arms, suggesting that Moscow never intended to overrun the country. CNN reported Friday that the total number of Russian troops in Gori, the city whose occupation supposedly represented an attempt to cut Georgia in half, was only 200.

The bulk of the US accounts of the events in Georgia consisted of unconfirmed charges of Russian and Ossetian atrocities against Georgian civilians, with little or no reporting on the Georgian onslaught on South Ossetia that touched off the conflict in the first place.

The Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Churkin, denounced US claims that Russia was conducting a “war of terror” in Georgia. Such language was “absolutely unacceptable,” he said, “particularly from the lips of the permanent representative of a country whose actions we are aware of, including with regard to civilian populations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Serbia.”

There has been virtually no acknowledgement in the American media of the grotesque double standard being employed by the Bush administration, under which its own violations of international law and depredations against innocent civilians are ignored, while far less provocative actions by other powers are vilified and their leaders demonized.

In Georgia, for example, Russia deployed, just outside its borders, less than 10 percent of the number of American troops that have been dispatched thousands of miles to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, overthrow their governments and establish US-backed puppet regimes.

Yet Bush could declare, in a press statement Friday, “The days of satellites and spheres of influence are behind us.” The man who in 2002 branded three sovereign states “an axis of evil,” ultimately invading one and conducting economic warfare against the other two, continued: “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.”

Senator John McCain, by far the most vocal advocate of a confrontational policy against Russia, sounded a similar delusional note, telling reporters during a Michigan presidential campaign appearance: “In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.” The Republican presidential candidate has been the most fervent advocate of US military escalation in Iraq, while his rival, Democrat Barack Obama, is playing the same role in relation to Afghanistan.

The bipartisan unity of Bush, McCain and Obama over the Russo-Georgian conflict demonstrates again that the vast majority of the American people—who oppose the war in Iraq and have no interest in provoking a war with Russia—are disenfranchised in the presidential election. There has been virtually no public discussion about the implications of the US-Polish agreement, which could involve the American people in a military conflict of incalculable dimensions.

The crisis in Georgia has sent shock waves through international relations. The ramifications extend not only into Eastern Europe, as demonstrated by the Polish action, but to the wider Caucasus region, the Middle East and Central Asia.

In the Caucasus, the initial impact was the shutdown of pipeline segments which carry Caspian Sea oil from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (B-T-C) pipeline was built with American support to provide an outlet for oil supplies to the world market independent of both Russia and Iran, which Washington regards as its two main adversaries in the region.

Both Turkey and Israel have been drawn into the crisis. President Bush declared that the US Navy would move to the Georgian coast to provide “humanitarian aid” and test Russia’s willingness to allow freedom of the seas. But Turkey must give its consent to the passage of warships through the straits connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Black Sea. State Department officials indicated that the naval deployment might have to be abandoned because of Turkish opposition.

Israel is also deeply implicated in the conflict. As the Israeli web site Ynet observed, “The fighting which broke out over the weekend between Russia and Georgia has brought Israel’s intensive involvement in the region into the limelight. This involvement includes the sale of advanced weapons to Georgia and the training of the Georgian army’s infantry forces.”

As for the Russian regime, Putin and Medvedev are pursuing a reactionary nationalist policy that appeals to the most backward moods in Russian society. Their arrogance and bullying only alienate the working people of Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States and the wider working class audience internationally.

The Putin regime is the instrument of the semi-criminal new bourgeoisie that emerged out of the dismantling of the Soviet Union, recruited in large measure from the ranks of the old Stalinist bureaucracy and possessing all its vices—above all, the national chauvinism that became the hallmark of Stalinism.

In the final analysis, the conflict between the United States and Russia is the inevitable outcome of the world crisis of the capitalist system, which takes the form not only of economic slump and financial convulsions, but of great-power conflict leading inexorably to imperialist war.

The only social force that can prevent imperialism from dragging mankind into a military holocaust is the international working class. It must be united and mobilized on the basis of the program of world socialist revolution to put an end to capitalism and the reactionary nation-state system, which are the root causes of militarism and war.

See Also:
The New York Times covers for US role in Georgia crisis
[16 August 2008]
EU meeting on Georgia reveals tensions between European powers and US
[15 August 2008]
Bush dispatches US military forces to Georgia
[14 August 2008]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/aug2008/usru-a16.shtml

**** Wag the Dog: How to Conceal Massive Economic Collapse

"I’m in show business, why come to me?"