It amuses me sometimes when I hear of how this country or that “saved the world from the Nazis”.

At the most they saved their own asses. Not the world.

This is because, folks, the Nazis could never have won the war. Even if they’d won every single bloody battle, they’d still have lost in the end, collapsed under their own weight of contradictions.

Here’s an illustration of why:

If you’ve seen films like Tora! Tora! Tora!, Midway, The Sinking of the Bismarck, or even (gag) Pearl Harbor (sic), you’ll have noticed the aircraft carriers liberally used by the British, Japanese and Americans – but the Germans, despite their large and powerful navy (the Kriegsmarine), never had an aircraft carrier.

Well, that’s not quite true. The Germans had an aircraft carrier programme in place as early as 1935, with four carriers planned. The first, called Flugzeugträger A (Aircraft Carrier A) before its launch in 1938 and named KMS Graf Zeppelin afterwards, was scheduled to be ready by 1940 – and yet, it was never, ever completed, even though a few carriers would have given the Germans a terrific advantage at sea.

One of the main reasons why the carrier wasn’t completed was the little fact that Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, chief of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, didn’t want anyone but his own men to operate aeroplanes. So he systematically and successfully sabotaged the plans of the German naval chief, Grossadmiral Erich Raeder, to make the carrier operational. One way of doing this was to offer only obsolete planes, the Messerschmitt Bf109E and Junkers 87 Stuka, for use on the carrier – and those in navalised versions, which, he insisted, would not be ready before the end of 1944, by which time, naturally, they would be even more museum pieces than they already were. Another way was to insist that the pilots of the planes would remain under Luftwaffe command, which means that for every operation launched from the ship, the pilots would have to receive orders from Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin and not from the naval officers commanding the ship!

No wonder Hitler, a man of limited imagination who was never enthusiastic about the sea in general and carriers in particular, gave up on the carrier…

So what happened to the Graf Zeppelin?

Although about 80% complete, the ship spent its time in harbour being used as a floating depot ship, while its planned sister ship, Flugzeugträger B, was scrapped in 1940 and the C and D were cancelled. In April 1945 its crew sunk it in shallow water to prevent it from being captured by advancing Soviet forces. They, however, raised it easily, towed it back to Russia, and in 1947 sank it as a target ship. The wreckage, seen here:

was finally found in 2006 by a Polish diving team.

Actually, the carrier was poorly designed, and wouldn’t have been much of a match for more sophisticated carrier forces, but that isn’t the point. The point is the fact that the Nazis were so busy in their internecine turf battles (of which I’ve mentioned just one) that they probably would have fallen apart immediately once Hitler left the scene.

All of which makes neo-Nazis today even more comical than they would otherwise be…

I have this theory: again and again in the course of history, nations have gone into gratuitous wars that had nothing to do with them because of a kind of collective death wish.

I am talking about joining in wars which had no possible relevance to them, and which - whether their side won or the other - would be so ruinous that they would end up losing anyway.

Think about Turkey in World War One, for instance, which joined the Central Powers even though the war in Flanders or Russia had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Turkey was so primitive it didn't even have horse-drawn fire engines; it had no functional navy, no air force at all, and even had to import German generals (like Generalleutnant Otto Liman von Sanders) to command its armies, which were comprised of different disaffected minorities and could not be counted on to stand and fight unless the troops were ethnic Anatolian Turks. The Germans even tried to refuse the Ottoman offer of alliance, but the Turks insisted on joining in a war that could not but end in the fractious sub-nationalities revolting and pulling the empire apart - whichever side won.

Think about Italy in the Second World War, the fascist Italy of Mussolini with its biplane air force, its tanks that couldn't withstand anything more than machine gun fire, its navy without radar, its soldiers who surrendered in masses at the first available opportunity. Hitler never forced Mussolini to join in on his side; Benito did it on his own, and turned out to be a positive encumbrance, a liability for the Nazis. The East African colonies of Italy couldn't even be defended and would be speedily lost; anyone could see that. But Mussolini didn't seem to. He even started an invasion of neutral Greece. Hitler had to rush troops to Africa and greece to bail him out, and even those failed, in the end.

Think about Britain today. OK, Britain is different in that it has systematically surrendered all vestiges of its independence to the US over the last few decades; but nobody actually put a gun to Tony Blair's head and ordered him to send troops to help in the illegal invasion of Iraq. The UK sat out the invasion of Vietnam and there was little Bush could have done to force Blair to join in on Iraq - but Blair didn't hesitate, not for a second. Check the Downing Street Memo. Now that Britain's last few troops in Iraq cower in fortified bases while militias control Basra, I don't exactly think anyone can seriously say London has gained by this...even if Bush had won in Iraq, I don't see how Britain would have gained a thing.

So, back to my theory. Assuming that the leaders of those countries weren't raving lunatics, and there is no evidence that any of them was, it may be that a time comes when everything seems so set to go belly up that a war that will in any case smash everything may come as a godsend, a way to destroy the established order and begin all over again. And of course it's a wonderful way  to divert people's attention, even if for a short while.

It's the ultimate circus of the ultimate Bread and Circuses - only soon enough it means the end of both bread and circuses. Ask Benito's ghost, or Enver Pasha's.

 

Sometimes good news doesn't make one ecstatic. Just quietly happy, and relieved.

When you have a man in charge of a country who openly believes in Santa Claus, you may have reason to worry.

When that individual pledges to make his country "America's agent in the Asia Pacific", supports the illegal invasion of Iraq, claims global warming is a myth, locks up foreign doctors on nonexistent evidence, and so on, you certainly have reason to worry. Even if you aren't a citizen of that nation and have no wish even to visit it.

I don't think Bush will be too happy tonight, with a Chinese-speaking non-puppet  about to take over Australia, bring back the troops from Iraq, sign the Kyoto protocol, and also give up on the ridiculous "Alliance of Democracies" against China. Now that Japan has already dropped out it leaves only the quisling regime in India aligned to Bush - and from the comments of Indian military leaders in recent days, even Manmohan Singh may be having second thoughts.

Good riddance to you, John Howard. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

 

Sometime back I'd written a post called Playing Games With Pakistan where I'd predicted disaster because Musharraf would do anything to stay in power.

I was right. He's declared an emergency to keep his post. The Supreme Court of Pakistan would have thrown him out otherwise, American support or not.

Condoleeza Rice, George W Bush, et al, are "disappointed" with Pervez Musharraf for imposing emergency. What a laugh riot.

Anyone with any sense knows that  nothing happens in Pakistan without direct American permission and involvement. And as for this emergency, just everyone knew it was coming. It was telegraphed so clearly that only the naive could have failed to see it.

I just wonder whom the Bush administration is trying to fool with their "back to democracy in Pakistan" talk - since they will also not put any pressure on Pakistan, not even halt weapons sales. Obvious conclusion: they don't want democracy in Pakistan.

Of course they don't. A dictator is always, in the Bush scheme of things, preferable to a democratic leader who might have to listen to the wishes of his or her own people - people who are highly unilkely to want to follow the Bush line on anything.  

Where Musharraf is concerned, he's a two-faced, untrustworthy multiple turncoat who is capable of doing anything and betraying anyone to stay in power. Don't Americans ever learn?  

As for the Pakistanis, that's what you get for being a "frontline ally" in the War Of Terror.

I’ve read rather a lot of people writing here on Multiply and elsewhere about Myanmar and why India should help the pro-democracy movement (such as it is) there.

On the surface, it’s common sense. We profess to be a democracy. We should support other democracies. Of course, in reality the argument is dangerously facile, as the Bush regime’s policies have consistently demonstrated. But still the point stands. Myanmar has got a terrible regime, a really vile one, no doubts about that. It’s brutal, opaque, contemptuous of its own people and corrupt to the core (but, uh, apart from Myanmar, which other countries could I name with precisely the same features in their governments?) – nobody, except maybe the junta itself, denies that. Fine.

So, the choice should be simple, right? Help anyone and everyone who wants to overthrow the regime.

Only it’s not that easy.

India is helping the junta economically, infrastructurally, and militarily. India is backing it all the way.

Now, before I go further, so there isn’t any doubt about what my personal feelings are, let me make my stand clear.

While I’m not a supporter of venal military regimes, I am aware of India’s reasons for backing the Myanmar dictatorship. And for once I understand them.

Let’s see the actual situation (as per India’s view) in Myanmar.

First, India does not think Aung San Suu Kyi will ever get to power any time soon, and probably never. The reason for this is that the junta is well-versed in the art of crushing public protest. Mass demonstrations may have brought down the odd East European regime, but they will achieve absolutely nothing against a government that is willing to use any amount of lethal force necessary to stay in power. In order to do that, the junta has even deliberately moved its capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw, so that the government is separated from the people and the army will not hesitate to fire on a citizenry it does not consider as part of itself. And since it’s not a single-man dictatorship, the death or incapacitation of one general will simply mean another moves up to fill the slot. So, conventional colour coded Western paid and backed “revolutions” are not going to work. Ergo, India has to live with the regime or help overthrow it.

How would India overthrow it? Would sanctions work? Of course not: sanctions only hurt poor people and actually force them to support the government, since it becomes a lifeline for them. A sanction-targeted people are a people suffering not for their own fault and who will support the government which is actually at fault, but which will just garner their support. And for other reasons, namely Myanmar’s natural resources, neither ASEAN nor India want it sanctioned.

Then, what about backing violent rebellions? From 1988 to 1991, India was a total supporter of Suu Kyi and even hosted and feted Myanmarese hijackers instead of handing them over to justice, something that would come back to haunt India in 1999 when Pakistani hijackers forced an Indian plane to Taliban controlled Afghanistan. India allowed the Myanmarese emigres to train and arm for a “freedom struggle”. All this achieved…nothing. All it did was alienate the regime.

So what were the results of alienating the regime? The immediate result was the sharply increased influence of China. Historically Myanmar’s people weren’t pro-China. They are more South Asians than South East Asians and till the 1930s Myanmar was an administrative part of British India. All that India did was push them into China’s arms. And the Indian establishment is – whatever it says on the surface – hostile to China.

Now, let’s see what Myanmar can offer India.

Despite all the talk of the Nuclear Deal, now collapsing, India actually is going to depend on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future to meet its energy needs. A lot of the energy has to come from natural gas. The closest source of natural gas that exists close to India is in Myanmar. Myanmar needs money, India needs gas.

Do you still need me to spell that part of it out?

The second reason is the geopolitics of North East India. This part of the country is riddled with insurgencies. Many of the insurgent groups have set up bases in the parts of North Western Myanmar where the regime’s control is, let us say, less than absolute. All of the Baptist Naga rebel groups of North Eastern India have camps in Myanmar, and have developed close linkages with the Kachin narco-terrorist gangs of Myanmar (like the Kachin Independence Army) and the Karens further south. The KIA also hosts other Indian terrorist groups like the People’s Revolutionary Army of Kangleipak (PREPAK), United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and many others. The KIA arms and trains these groups for a fee and is a major supporter of jade smuggling, gun running, and opium production. The terrain being heavily forested and mountainous, it’s difficult for the Myanmarese to destroy their terrorists because they flee over to India; and Indian terrorists, similarly pressed, cross over to Myanmar. The only way to crush the enemies India and Myanmar have in common is to co-operate militarily. Clear so far?

The third part of it is the fact that – at long last – the Indian government is realising the fairly obvious fact that the North East of India is a ready-made gateway to the thriving market economies of South East Asia. Hanoi is actually, as the crow flies, closer to me as I write this than New Delhi, the national capital, is. And if India was to use that gateway, the easiest way was to develop road and rail linkages through Myanmar. And also a large part of North East India’s economy is integrated with that of Myanmar. In this town it’s easy to buy Myanmarese processed fruit and textiles, for instance. That’s another good reason to develop the border crossing, at a place called Moreh in Manipur state, and infrastructure in Myanmar. It’s just national self-interest.

So these are the excellent reasons Delhi has for sucking up to the junta in Naypyidaw.

There are the counter-arguments of course. Most of them come from theoreticians sitting far from the action.  

I’ve read a pair of Indians “intellectuals” in the US writing of how a democratic “Burma” would be all-inclusive and the Karens and Kachins would immediately disarm and become peace-loving villagers. It was good for a hearty laugh. India is a democracy; the state of Nagaland, for instance, not only has its own freely elected legislature but no one but an ethnic Naga can be elected to it. No one but an ethnic Naga can even visit the state without getting prior permission (the Inner Line Permit). Yet Nagaland is insurgency-stricken and very large parts of it are ruled by factions of the terrorist National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN). Manipur state, just to the south, is even worse. Why should India have a “million mutinies now” as a democracy? For that matter, how can the Basque separatist group ETA still exist in democratic Spain? What about the IRA’s decades of revolution against Britain? Why is democratic Sri Lanka cut in two by civil war? All-inclusive democracies can’t have insurgencies? Spare me.

Then there are the lot who say a democratic Myanmar should be India’s friend. The experience of other democratic states in South Asia hasn’t exactly made Indian governments enthusiastic about it. Democratic Sri Lankan governments are bitterly hostile to India, and in Pakistan military governments have been less troublesome to this country than its occasional democratic regimes. The exact same thing holds for Bangladesh. Democratic rulers have always raised the fear of the Indian bogeyman to hold on to power. Why should India assume Aung San Suu Kyi will be any different?

There was yet someone else who said Myanmar never actually took any measures against Indian rebels, that it was all a bluff. Well, a senior member of the Khaplang faction of the NSCN recently admitted that the terrorist group had lost many bases to the junta’s army in the recent past, but that after the demonstrations in Yangon the army had been withdrawn. So this puts the lie to that particular claim.

As I said, these are the Indian government’s reasons for supporting the Myanmarese junta. I can understand them, though not necessarily share them whole-heartedly. I have a couple of points of my own to add.

First, I’m deeply suspicious of dynastic politicians like Suu Kyi. They have utterly ruined, and are ruining, South Asia. Myanmar’s people may even be better off as they are.

Then, India has no business interfering in other countries’ internal affairs. What with our puppet “prime minister” and total criminalisation of politics, we can have nothing to say about that. We can’t possibly be holier than thou.

Also, I don’t really know how much of the information coming out of the country is genuine and how much is propaganda. I do know some of it is pretty dodgy, like a purported interview of an ex-security guard of Suu Kyi’s who was “beaten on his polio-afflicted legs”. What kind of security guard has polio-atrophied legs? And remember the Western media’s lies over Iraq?

And how can we ever continue to support terrorists and hijackers? The policy was insane from the beginning.

It’s all very easy to sit in comfortable surroundings and call for sanctions on Myanmar. But it’s not going to happen, and the junta will remain in place.

Ultimately, sometimes one can’t have what one wants, so one settles for what one has.

 

 

    

  

    

There’s a lot of guff in the Indian papers these days.

Much of it is about the “growing closeness” of India to the United States.  That’s what they call it, “growing closeness”, whatever that means.

Meanwhile the so-called Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, calls George Bush his close friend while his ambassador in Washington calls Bush the best friend India has ever had. Which is a position strongly supported by the likes of the ultra-right wing columnist, Swaminathan G Anklesariya Aiyar, a man who is still trying to cover up his initial enthusiastic support for the Iraq invasion. Nowadays he calls Iraq a “mistake” but says it shouldn’t poison our relationship with the US.

All right, so what is so wrong here? Shouldn’t we be happy to make friends with the US?

The answer, of course, is that isn’t friendship with the US that is what we’re making. It’s a relationship with the US government and the military-industrial complex. If you want to talk about friendship with the people of a country, everyone is nowadays everyone’s friend. Half the people on my contacts list here, for instance, are Americans. None of them seems to be offended enough by my anti-neocon diatribes to quit. People never really have a problem relating to other people. Besides everyone knows all about American “soft power.” Hollywood may make a horrible amount of trash, but it still rules the world’s imagination – and rewrites history while it’s about it. Personally, I prefer French, Russian, and British films, in that order, but I do admit Hollywood’s power. But that isn’t a problem. I’m not asking for American movies to be banned or something.  

The problem, of course, with the whole concept of this alleged “growing closeness” is that it has nothing to do with all that soft power and people to people contact. It has everything to do with the current position of the US in the world as the leading threat to peaceful co-existence. See, if you have a bully in the neighbourhood who enjoys beating up people at random just to show who’s boss (the Ledeen Doctrine) – you can either knuckle under to him, you can try and resist him in any way you can, or you can leave the neighbourhood. Since a country can’t leave a neighbourhood, one can either resist current US policy or else join in it. Joining in it means, as the Pakistanis are discovering these days, total submission, so that one can’t even get rid of a hated dictator if his continual in office is convenient for the US. It also means joining in the US’ foreign policy misadventures, even when such joining is harmful and counterproductive, as with Britain in Iraq. This brings its own problems in its wake, like the increased likelihood of retaliatory “terrorist” attacks.

Also, no power lasts forever. America’s power is already in decline, and it has lost the constituency that belonged to it – the respect of the rank and file of the world’s people. Even the Roman Empire collapsed in the end – of its own weight. There is absolutely no reason to think that the US Empire won’t do the same. And then, my friends, other nations have long memories. Just see what happened to the nations on the losing side of the First World War if you wish to know what settling scores is all about.

As for the common dream of the middle class to aspire to American standards of living and an American lifestyle – that isn’t on either, because (except for a tiny uber-rich minority, and that too living on borrowed time) even the Americans can’t aspire any longer to the American Dream lifestyle, which probably peaked somewhere in the late fifties. If we all wanted to live like Americans, we’d need the resources of six more earths for that. Is this something that is possible?

I’m surprised hardly anyone in the media has the integrity to point these simple, well known facts out.

On second thoughts, though, I’m not surprised at all.     

Sometimes it's better not to know too much...
I've always been fascinated by the Third Reich, most so of the story of the last month of its existence, with the Red Army threatening Berlin, the Western Allies smashing their way through the Ruhr, Germany almost cut in two, and Hitler hiding in his Fuehrerbunker under the Reich Chancellery. So when this film was made and opened to good reviews I waited for it eagerly, and I finally found a copy of the DVD in Delhi and bought it. Watched it last night.
Man, what a turkey.
First things first. If you want to make a historical movie, for dog's sake, keep it true to history. Or it will appeal only to those who prefer drama and invented "facts" to reality - and going by all appearances there are far too many of that.
What should I say about this film? It purports to depict the last twelve days in the Bunker, from Hitler's birthday on April 20th to the final exodus from the Bunker on May 2, two days after his suicide. I say "purports", because it does nothing of the sort.
Anyone who's read Shirer or Trevor Roper on Hitler will never be able to reconcile knowledge with depictions here. I won't really bother to give too much away - go see it for yourself if you must. But I'll say this much:
They play merry hell with timelines and logic, with the surrender of the city PRECEDING the final exodus and heavy fighting (how on earth?)
The film invents things, like Goebbels and his wife shooting each other (they were shot - at their request - by SS guards).
Total nonentities like Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary, and Eva Braun are turned into super-important characters while the single most important man in the Bunker in the last days (after Hitler himself), Martin Bormann, is about as important as an item of furniture. Braun, in reality a brainless Hitler devotee, becomes a discerning, sensitive woman who tries to save her brother in law from Hitler's wrath (in reality she bluntly refused to help). Magda Goebbels' alleged personal poisoning of her children (since they all died, there's no way of knowing just who poisoned the kids) occupies at least ten minutes of screen time - all to no value. Etc.
The film dramatises incidents out of all proportion, like the capture of the brother in law (SS Gruppenfuehrer Hermann Fegelein) who was discovered in his own house in civilian clothes and on Hitler's orders quietly shot in the Chancellery garden. In the film he's discovered naked in bed with a woman, boozed out of his mind. Even Hitler's funeral is fictionalised beyond recognition.
And so on. If I were to write an account of every fictionalisation, dramatisation, and plain fabrication in the film, I would end up writing pages, and this film isn't worth it. Not at all.
I'm awarding it two stars, and the film is worth zero. I'm awarding the two stars ONLY because of Bruno Ganz' performance as Hitler. He's worth more than the rest of the film's cast put together, dragging leg, trembling hand, and all.
Many years ago, I watched a TV film called THE LAST DAYS OF HITLER. That was so much better I'd have loved to see it again.
As for this one, they should have burned it along with Hitler's body.

I was, a couple of hours back, standing in front of the TV watching a patch of early dawn Islamabad - a street with a few Pakistani soldiers in khaki uniforms standing around, virtually motionless, while the news strip at the bottom said BREAKING NEWS: RED MOSQUE IN ISLAMABAD STORMED BY PAKISTANI ARMY (or words to that effect).

HEAVY FIGHTING ON, it went on to say. And my reaction? Well, apart from the fact that this "storming" was about as interesting to watch as grass growing, went:   Wow...does anyone believe this?

OK, I do accept that the Pakistanis stormed the mosque where a group of fundiwack mullahs are determined to be "martyred", whatever that means. I'm absolutely sure the mullahs stockpiled weapons and are fighting back. What I mean is, does this mean anyone will really believe the Pakistanis are actually fighting Islamic radicalism?

Just a couple of days back, after all, the Americans admitted that they called off an anti Al Qaeda operation in order not to offend the Pakistani establishment. As everyone knows, the Musharraf regime uses the mullahs - they are one of its pillars of support.

The Musharraf regime is in trouble. It sacked the Chief Justice of Pakistan and lost most of its remaining middle class support; it is blocking genuine elections, and the fact Musharraf is determined to remain both president and chief of the Pakistani army as long as possible isn't actually gaining him any friends either. So now what does he do? The Pakistani people detest the mullahs. Answer: attack the most visible of the mullahs, a virulent lot who have no chance of popular sympathy and whom the real mullah establishment probably regards as liabilities.

Let me make a prediction: when the Red Mosque fighting is over, Musharraf will get the only backing that matters: that of Bush. He can then happily make himself president-for-life (as Bush would like to) and continue playing footsie with the really powerful mullahs, the ones who really matter, and not the small bunch of madmen in the Red Mosque. Nobody will even ask where the madmen got their weapons in the first place. (Indians here would be advised to remember Operation Bluestar.)

What of the particular lot, those holed up in the mosque, anyway? The mentality of fundoos (as the Pakistanis call the mullahs) are beyond me, but they don't seem too different from the Rapture Right of the Christian fundamentalist fringe. This particular lot wants "martyrdom" and the "martyrdom" to become the focus of an Islamic rebellion in Pakistan. This will not happen, but it will make Musharraf very, very happy if there is some kind of small, controllable uprising. President for life with American support, as I said.
   
Oh, while I'm on the subject, Indian TV will carefully avoid showing too many "disturbing" visuals from the Red Mosque, I'm sure. It might incite Indian Muslims to violence...

How stupid do establishments think the people are?

    

Let's assume that the British did foil a car bomb plot in London and it wasn't just another invented, fictional episode like last year's "liquid bomb" farce to scare people into supporting the indefensible.

Logically, then what?

Doesn't it seem sensible, if your city's underground has been bombed, if your Muslim population is becoming steadily more radicalised, if more and more terror plots keep surfacing against you, to ask why? And isn't it sensible to do something to remove the root cause for all this? How long can you keep arresting people and then letting them off after demolishing their lives, and how long can you keep shooting strolling Brazilian electricians and claiming they were running Arab suicide bombers?

There are two answers to this question. First, you can conclude that this is because they are "all evil" and "hate your freedoms", so you can ignore what they, themselves, say in explicit terms about their reasons for the attacks. The advantage of this line of thinking is that you can just go on doing whatever you are doing. It requires no soul searching, no thought, nothing, except the conviction that you are righteous.

Alternatively, you can decide that it's a blowback from your adventures abroad in support of the would be ruler of the world, a man hated by the majority of his own people, a man who has cynically and deliberately unleashed perpetual war in order to impose his and his cronies' rule over his country and by extension the world. Like your Spanish ex-ally, you can learn the lesson and withdraw honourably and expect that - as was the case for your Spanish ex-ally - the attacks and plots will end.

Because nowadays just destroying "terrorist" groups won't mean plots will end, as the London police themselves claim there's no obvious link between the bombs and any terror group.

Given that Tony Blair has been rewarded by Bush by being made peace envoy to the Palestinians, and has accepted, and that Gordon Brown is basically Blair without the toothy grin, which alternative do you think Britain will choose?

Get ready to foil more plots and "foil" more "plots", Gordon.  

 

 

 

 

 

George W. Bush, I hear, said that Tony Blair, on leaving office to end up hopefully in the war crimes dock, wasn’t his “poodle…he was bigger than that.”

 

I agree, for once, with George W.

 

Blair is bigger than a poodle. Of course he is.

 

After all a spaniel is, not to mention the average mongrel.

In The Telegraph of 30 April, Canadian columnist Gwynne Dyer wrote this article on Boris Yeltsin: LAST ACTION HERO

Gwynne Dyer

He was always a heavy drinker, but until his health problems got bad in the mid-Nineties, he could usually hold his liquor. The real problem was that he was a man of action who did not have an idea in his head. A lot of people kept trying to put ideas in there, but they just fell out of the other side. So he freed Russia from communism, but he did not give it much else to work with instead. Boris Yeltsinwas brought to Moscow in 1985 to clean up the corruption in the capital by the man he eventually removed from power, the communist reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev. But the times were right for ambitious men to aim a lot higher, and Yeltsin was nothing if not ambitious. So, by 1988, he had quit from the communist party’s ruling body, the politburo. He ran for the all-Moscow seat against the official communist candidate in the first free election in Soviet history, and won in a landslide. I first met Yeltsin soon after that in the basement cafeteria of the Supreme Soviet, just inside the Kremlin walls, which was the easiest place for foreign journalists to find and interview deputies to this new-fangled beast, the Congress of People’s Deputies. It was one of the stars of the nascent Russian democratic movement, Galina Starovoitova, who introduced us, and the contrast between the two of them was quite stunning. Starovoitova (who was murdered some years ago in a contract killing) was a genuine democratic hero, an intellectual who dedicated her life to the ideal of a free society. Yeltsin was a charming bruiser who ran mostly on instinct and was all too aware of his considerable charisma. Yet he was in practice the leader of her little band of democrats, the Inter-Regional Deputies Group. Big decisions The IRDG flourished for less than a year, and it had less than a tenth of the deputies to the Congress, most of whom were still communist party hacks. Its leaders, including famous dissident figures like scientist Andrei Sakharov and historian Yuri Afanasiev, were using their unprecedented access to the media to spread democratic ideas to the furthest corners of a country where such notions had been suppressed for seventy years. But they knew those ideas alone would not produce a democratic majority in any Soviet election in the future. Yeltsin, on the other hand, could win the election, but he had no ideas at all. So they made him their leader, and, during that year, you rarely saw him without some leading light of the IRDG by his side Everybody meant well, I think, but the transplant did not take place, and by 1990, Yeltsin had moved on. In the following two years, he did two things that should have earned him the gratitude of both Russia and the whole world. Standing on a tank outside the White House in Moscow in August, 1991, he turned back the hardline communist coup attempt that almost reversed the flow of history. And he did it practically single-handedly, by the force of his own personality. The coup was amazingly incompetent, but it could have succeeded nevertheless, in which case we would still be dealing with a ramshackle communist-ruled Soviet Union, sinking ever deeper into poverty and corruption and fighting insurgencies all around its perimeter. Yeltsin’s other great accomplishment was to wind up the Soviet Union and set all of its constituent “republics” free. He did it for purely tactical reasons, but it was the last great act of decolonization, and it spared us a generation of bloody struggles as the old Russian empire gradually fell apart. But then Yeltsin should have died or at least retired because he was a disaster and an embarrassment as the president. But he did get the two big things right and that counts for a lot. History may take a kinder view of him than Russians do today.

Here is the letter I wrote in response. I'm sure they won't print it.




Gwynne Dyer, in his column published in The Telegraph of 30 April, claims Boris Yeltsin did the world a great service by helping destroy the Soviet Union. It is an opinion one can expect from someone, like Dyer, who claimed that Ronald Reagan was a hero.

The facts speak for themselves. The Soviet people had voted in a referendum in 1991 overwhelmingly in favour of retaining the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev was in the process of formulating a new treaty between the constituent Soviet Republics. It was Yeltsin and his cohorts who provoked the coup against Gorbachev, and, far from being incompetent, the coup most unfortunately failed simply because it was not carried out severely enough. One mini Tiananmen Square shooting (and much more supportable than Tiananmen Square) would have seen the coup through, and the Soviet Union would have been preserved. It was Yeltsin and his cronies, who, simply to gain power for themselves, and against the express wishes of the Soviet people, promoted the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Dyer claims, ingenuously, that the USSR would have "sunk deeper into poverty and corruption with insurgencies around its borders." What actually happened after the breakup of the USSR was that the new Russia was (with enthusiastic American help) allowed to fall into such dire poverty and corruption that the economy was gifted away to oligarchs, the average life span imploded, savings collapsed in hyper-inflation, insurgency began ravaging Chechnya, and "democrat" Yeltsin was by 1993 actually shelling his own Parliament in Moscow, something the coup "plotters" could have done but did not. By 1999, Yeltsin, whose popularity ratings were down to 2%, and who had been re-elected in 1996 only because of American help, had to leave office because the scandals around him had grown so great he had a choice of facing revolution and trial or resignation. He chose the latter because he was promised immunity from prosecution by his successor, Vladimir Putin. But because he had throughout been a toady to the US, he is still called a "democrat" today.

It of course goes without saying that had the USSR still been in existence today the current military and economic global wars being waged against the poor and innocent of many lands by the American imperium would have been impossible.

It is odd that Yeltsin, whose popularity levels were abysmal and who spent most of his years in office in an alcohol befuddled haze, should be called "democratic" while Putin, who enjoys popularity ratings of over 80% and under whom a newly emergent Russia is again finding a voice in world affairs, is suddenly called an "antidemocratic autocrat" by the same Western media that had brought us the lies about WMD in Iraq.

When a ruler - an absolute dictator or "democrat" - at war is faced with inevitable defeat and occupation of his country by the enemy, and cannot quite trust his own generals, there are two ways to react.

The first is the method of Adolf Hitler: you can simply deny reality, shut out the thought of defeat, refuse to admit the very possibility, and while your subordinates, more realistic than you, quietly make plans for their personal survival, you take your country down with you into a mass grave so as to make a properly fitting warrior's funeral.

I would call this the egoistical solution.

This method, of course, makes it impossible to make any plans for a post-occupation resistance. In the first place, since defeat can't even be mentioned, you obviously can't make plans to fight on after it. And then, even if defeat did come, your plans are to take the country with you into destruction, the people being unworthy of your genius, so there won't be any country left to fight for. Nazi Germany was the only occupied country of World War II that never produced a resistance movement (Japan wasn't occupied till a month after the surrender).

The other method is the one that Saddam Hussein adopted. You know you are about to get invaded; you know you haven't a shade of a hope of either avoiding the invasion or even staving off defeat, since your armed forces are without anything larger than sidearms and a few tanks without spare parts; and you know the enemy is bent on staying on afterwards to occupy your country for commercial profit.

In that case, you can adopt the Hitlerite model, but just as it did not serve Hitler - Germany wasn't destroyed and there never was a German resistance movement, so the occupation of the country went on unhindered - it would not likely be of any use. Blown up oil wells can be repaired, after all; and the fate of the Iraqi people was obviously not on the minds of the neocon invaders, so blowing up cities (as Hitler had planned for Hamburg) would have achieved nothing. It would not even have delayed the invaders; their economic resources were too great.

So, Saddam Hussein, while putting up a brave front, carried out his plans quietly; he did not arm those he could not trust; he allowed his army to melt away after a token resistance, so as to keep its trained and armed soldiers in existence; he did not blow up a single oil well or destroy any infrastructure (which he could easily have done and which he had actually done in 1991 in Kuwait). He kept a core group to begin a guerrilla war against the invasion, and waited for the brutality and stupidity of the occupiers to rouse the pitch of anger so high that the troops who had not fought for their country now came out to fight for the defence of their homes and families, organised themselves into militias, and began a popular insurrection.

Since, once the insurrection was well begun, the leader who began it becomes irrelevant (by the time Hussein was captured he had no further value to the rebellion) I would call this the altruistic solution.

Of course Hussein could not have wanted the cleaving of his country along sectarian lines so that a fratricidal civil war would begin; but there are enough indications that if the occupation withdrew the various factions would find a modus vivendi and turn on the foreign jihadis who are responsible for the worst of the sectarian conflict. And civil war or not, ethnic cleansing or not, Hussein's plan is working. The remnants of the occupier "coalition" are stuck fast in a bog; led by a reality-denying Hitler figure, they cannot withdraw and admit defeat; nor can they find a way of winning. But since denying reality is not a substitute for reality itself, one can expect that in the not too distant future interesting things will begin to happen.

We could do with another Der Untergang, this time on Bush, and it might even win the Oscar...

Think war.

Put some to the left of you, a little to the right, and just a soupcon up on top. It’s not you who’s doing the fighting, more’s the pity – it’s someone else who’s getting away with the glory. And what are you? The miserable ruler of a third grade power that once ruled the greatest empire the world has ever seen.

And to the left, to the right, to the top, the victorious flags of a conquering nation your forefathers once ruled flap in the wind, bringing liberation to people at the point of a gun.

Now assume that you are fundamentally a weak person, a man obsessed with the power you do not have. What better than to join in on the coat tails of the big man across the border, who seems all set to sweep the world into his pocket?

At the least, you will gather the crumbs from off his table. At the most, as his junior partner, you might get to recreate the empire your forefathers ruled, and you will be remembered forever.

The last time your nation went to war was over a colonial question and won a not very arduous victory – and that was years ago, its morale boosting effects long since forgotten. With mounting domestic problems, you need some way of distracting he peoples’ attention…

Of course, you know the big man across the border will win. He’s won everything thus far. And if your army is a bantamweight on its own, well then, the answer is self-evident.

Well, then…

Frankly, sometimes I doubt my own beliefs. I’m a die hard sceptic and no one would ever – I thought – make me believe in reincarnation.

Well now, what do you know?

There was once a man who came to power in a country, a country that once had been a great empire, but was now in a state of flux. He was prime minister under a constitutional monarch. He won some popular acclaim, because of his efficiency as compared to the turkeys who preceded him, he seemed to be – however briefly – a flicker of hope, he allied himself with a powerful but aggressive nation which had – a long time ago – been a colony of his own nation, and with whose current leader he had a strong ultra-right wing ideological affinity. He was a good orator, he had presence, he had once been left-wing and then had swung over to the extreme right. In his efforts at allying with the strongman across the border (a man with a  somewhat weak grip on reality) he claimed that he was actually working for the good of all mankind, because he was trying to restrain the other. He was a man of peace. At the same time he wanted a good solid piece of the action. He relied strongly on neo-imperialist ideology that called for “enlightened double standards” and “civilising the natives.” Also – and this may not be insignificant – he was a deeply insecure man, a poseur and chicken hawk, who kept on trying to prove himself sexually. Such people tend to be violent sometimes.

Also, most people could not understand the actual relationship he had for the Big Man. He seemed to be an infatuated schoolboy, styling even his clothing and mannerisms after the Beloved, and by the end to have surrendered his will power entirely.  

So, when his ally began a major conflict, he decided to join in, despite his own people not wanting to have any truck with the war. His own forces had little enthusiasm for the fight and even less in the way of ability, so it was his ally that had to bail him out continually. And it was when his ally became embroiled in a war of choice that could – predictably - only have ended in disaster, he joined in, not because he necessarily wanted to, but because he was so deeply in hock to the big man that he literally no longer had any sort of choice.

And when the Big Man got mired in the morass of his own making, he was well and truly stuck with him…

When the Big Man was – obviously to anyone with a minimum of common sense – facing inevitable defeat, he tried to pull back at the last moment, but by then his own party had had enough and pulled the rug from under him…

In other things apart from the war, he had tried to distance himself from his ally. His ally had begun a de facto crusade against a particular religious group; he refused to have any truck with that, but was forced by his ally to take measures against members of such a group, which he did with considerably more reluctance than the Big Man would have liked. By and large, civilians in zones occupied by his troops were safer and better off than in zones occupied by the Big Man’s forces. He made cautious economic experiments which were, by and large, less disastrous than those of the Big Man’s – if seen in the long run.

And he went under before the Big Man did. Done in, first and foremost, by the politicians of his own party, who found him an unacceptable liability.

All right, Marx said history repeats itself, first as a tragedy and then as a farce, but what are the odds against such an exact recapitulation of events?

Benito Mussolini. Left winger who turned steadily to the right. A chicken hawk in World War One, who claimed to have been wounded in battle when what he suffered was mild injuries in a training accident, and who returned from the war because of neurosyphilis. Someone who became Prime Minister under King Vittorio Emmanuel II, and won support because he made the trains run on time. Someone who privatised the economy but not at the cost of surrendering all state control. Someone who apparently had to prove himself sexually continually. Someone with a weak army that had won a victory in a brutal colonial war (including the indiscriminate bombing of civilians) against a weak country, Ethiopia, which had whetted his appetite for a new Roman Empire. Someone who allied himself with Hitler, a man further to the right than he was, in a relationship incomprehensible to thinking individuals. Someone who tried to play the “peacemaker” in 1938 in Munich, so that he seemed to be a restraining influence to the non-discriminating. Someone whose anti-Semitic measures were a pale shadow of those of Hitler’s, whose own people were strongly against the war he joined, and who, once Hitler as defeated in Russia, was finally left more or else to his own devices and was done in by a political coup in his own Fascist party.

(About Mussolini’s anti-Jewism: Mussolini had once called Hitler’s laws against Jews a disgrace, and until 1938 had tried to resist imposing his own version of those laws. Thereafter, even the laws he did impose were not strictly followed. Jews in Italy and under Italian occupation were far safer than Jews elsewhere. For example, the most complete genocide, in statistical terms, was the one conducted by the fascist Ustasha militia in Croatia: twenty five out of thirty thousand Jews were killed. The five thousand were in the Italian zone of occupation and Mussolini refused to hand them over. Nor were Jews in Italy given over to the tender mercies of the SS, unlike the Jews of Vichy France, for example. If “Israel” planted a tree for Oskar Schindler, who saved a paltry thousand Jews, I wonder how many they ought to  plant for our Benito?)  

Tony Blair. Chicken hawk. Left wing Labourite turned ultra right wing New Labourite turned  acolyte of George Bush, so he even dresses like him. Heir to a British Empire which last won a farcical war against the Argentines on the Islas Malvinas in 1982. Someone who seems to have to keep proving his sexual prowess with his wife to the extent of having children in office. Someone who claims that he is a “restraining influence” on Bush. Someone who imitated Bush’s de facto anti-Islam actions but on a far smaller scale, and joined in a war of choice that is clearly headed for defeat. Someone whose troops of occupation, like Mussolini’s, are less murderous by far than those of his patron, although, on an absolute scale, brutal enough. Someone who is far less of a privatiser than his master and who also signed the Kyoto protocol, against the wishes of Bush. Someone – now that Bush is mired in a war that will end in defeat – is being done in by an internal revolt within his own party.

Mussolini ended up hanging by the heels. While I don’t actually think the fate of Blair will mirror that, what with all the other similarities I would not be entirely surprised.

         

Good news from two sources.

First, El Commandante is back at work. Wasn't he dead, dying, or moribund? Wasn't his death a matter of "months, not years"? Or is the Fidel who is meeting people and administering the country again a double, like the fake doubles Saddam Hussein was supposed to have - and what happened to them, anyway?

Bummer for the CIA.

On the other hand, the Dipsomaniac is dead.

In 1991 I was a student in Lucknow, almost cut off from the world except for newspapers (I did not patronise the hostel's TV room) and therefore I could only watch at second hand, at one remove, the tragedy of the wilful destruction of the Soviet Union. I cheered on the coup "plotters" as they tried to save their country from falling apart and being reduced to poverty and irrelevance; and I mourned when, entirely because they were not severe enough (they should certainly have done a Tien An Men Square - and it would have been far more justified), the "coup" collapsed. That was the time when I first heard of Boris Yeltsin in detail...among other things, one of my teachers took time off from a Pharmacology lecture to expatiate on the coup ("And Yeltsin had the courage to stand on a tank and say, This is not right") . I don't really think that my personal detestation of pharmacology and the fact that this teacher had some...odd...views on everything from lecture schedules to exam questions coloured my reactions.

Anyway. The coup - so called - collapsed (and the "plotters" were all exonerated in the few cases they went to trial), the USSR ceased to exist, America got a free hand to impose its agenda on the world (could Bush have carried out a single of his crimes if the USSR still existed?), Yeltsin made himself "democratic" boss of Russia (wonder how the collapse of the USSR was democratic, since the people of the country had voted overwhelmingly to preserve it? But then anything that comes in handy for the West is "democratic", and Hugo Chavez is a dictator despite repeatedly winning free and fair elections) - and handed over the economy lock, stock and barrel to his cronies. The welfare state crumbled, the economy imploded, the promised American aid never arrived, the average lifespan collapsed, Yeltsin attacked protesters and shelled the White House in Moscow when parliamentarians refused to obey his dictates, he got so drunk he could not even get off the plane in Ireland, he did not even back up his threat in defence of Yugoslavia, bombed by Clinton. His personal popularity collapsed to 2%, but he still clung on to power. But he was a loyal camp follower of Washington, therefore, he was a democrat.

When he - finally - left office in 1999, his successor Vladimir Putin felt forced to give him immunity from prosecution - else he would have been gladly executed by the Russian people he had humiliated, beggared, and destroyed.

And now - now that Russia is again in the ascendant, now that it can no longer be ignored, now that it is again a superpower in the making, suddenly Vladimir Putin - who has approval rates in the eighty percents, who has been repeatedly voted to power, who is set to voluntarily relinquish power next year despite the wishes of his people - this Russia is a "non-democratic" regime and Putin is a "vile Stalinist autocrat."

Going by the standards of US media outlets, anyone damned by them can't be all bad.

Now if we could only rewind the clock to 1991...

(I began writing this one this morning as a spoof meant as a gift for Malcolm. Somewhere along the way it became a more serious essay. I don't actually think it's going to happen, of course, but one can always hope.)

Time: the not too distant future. Oh, say…October 2008. That seems reasonable.

Background information: The US presidential elections of November are due, but the political scene is one of confusion. The Republicans and their corporate backers are desperate to get – say – Rudi Guiliani elected. The Democrats are a divided house, but with a wafer thin majority in the public opinion polls. The very public infighting between Barack Obama and Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton has harmed the Democratic cause, as has the refusal to impeach Bush and Cheney, the continued support to “Israel” right up to, during, and through the Great Gaza Genocide of December 2007. The defeat in Iraq and the Democratic refusal to break ranks in any meaningful way with the neocons on terminating that conflict has also eaten into Democratic votes. But all that this has meant is that, because there is no real third party candidate, people will not vote rather than vote for either party. Although the Democratic votes have plummeted, the Republicans have not gained; and the Democrats still hold a slim lead. And Hilary Clinton has been forced to promise the electorate that if voted to power she will crack down on political corruption, the lobbies, and the military industrial complex, clean up the environment, and withdraw troops from the global US jehad against Islam.

The big corporations are worried. Very, very worried.

Recent history: Recent events have not favoured the Republicans. Domestically, the crime wave is shooting up and up, the job market is imploding, food prices climb through the roof as meat and maize are diverted to produce “bio-fuels” for SUV owners, and parents battle school boards that aggressively push a fundamentalist Christian religious agenda. There are credible rumours that the draft will be reintroduced to keep the lid on social discontent. As the housing crisis continues, thousands of formerly relatively well off Americans suddenly find themselves on the street, homeless and with no social support.

Internationally: The most awaited event of the Bush presidency’s final two years, the attack on Iran, was a disaster. Massive casualties followed the sinking of several US carriers by Iranian anti-ship missiles provided by Russia. Since the land forces were too overstretched and incapable of invading Iran, only naval and air resources could be used for the attack. They were far from enough, even with the liberal use of nuclear warheads. This use of nuclear weapons against Iran has not damaged that country totally beyond recovery but has damaged the US so much diplomatically that most of the world’s governments no longer dare, for fear of their own people’s wrath, to maintain close relations with the US. Russia, infuriated by overt American attempts to contain, destabilise and impoverish it, is now openly supplying weapons to anyone with a grudge against the US. China has – seeing the way the wind is blowing – pulled most of its investments out of the American market, and is, more quietly, doing the same.

Following the defeat, once again, of its renewed 2007 summer invasion of Lebanon, “Israel” – unsure of the continued backing of its embattled American master – had tried to gather its people behind it by a massive and sustained offensive against Gaza which ended in December in what came to be known as the Great Gaza Genocide. In the space of four days, in the full glare of the international media, and under direct orders of the new “Premier” Binyamin Netanyahu, the “Israelis”, using aircraft, tanks, and artillery, killed by conservative estimates three hundred and fifty thousand unarmed Palestinian men, women and children, on the premise of “fighting Hamas”. At least half a million more were forcibly deported to the Sinai peninsula. Gaza city was a mass of smouldering ruins. Netanyahu defended his armed forces’ actions by claiming that the people had been given “fair warning” – an hour – to leave the city and that anyone remaining after that time was fair game. It backfired spectacularly. Not even the Americans could protect “Israel” against the backlash. Even India’s pliant pro-Zionist government collapsed after its Left allies withdrew support over the Congress regime’s refusal to break off diplomatic relations with the “Israelis”. A new left wing coalition was stitched together which immediately repudiated the previous pro-American/Zionist government’s foreign policy completely. The same thing has been happening everywhere. New governments in central Europe have universally demanded the immediate withdrawal of all US forces based on their territory. France’s unexpectedly left wing new government has broken off diplomatic relations with the US and “Israel”. The floodgates are creaking.

In Iraq, the last few American troops, having suffered about ten thousand dead, are now set to leave. They control nothing any longer, not even the approaches to their own bases, and have to be helicoptered out because they no longer can venture outside. Even the helicopters are shot down every day as civil war rages all around. In the heart of the erstwhile Green Zone, the last American diplomats are fending off teary eyed appeals from Nouri al-Maliki and his former ministers for asylum to preserve their skins. The diplomats are to be evacuated in short order. They will take no Arabs with them.

In Afghanistan, a resurgent Taliban now surround Kabul. With the fall of the Bagram airbase, the NATO troops remaining in the capital are trapped. The Afghan army has gone over to the Taliban side, lock, stock, and barrel. Hamid Karzai – unable to flee – has been killed by his American bodyguards before he can sign an unconditional surrender. The NATO commanders are negotiating with the Taliban for safe passage of their trapped forces in return for recognition and reconstruction aid.

Defeat everywhere.

Frustrated at home and stymied overseas, Bush and his neocons have decided on a last minute gamble to snatch at least an electoral victory from the ashes of defeat.

After a prearranged “provocation”, they are going to launch a total war against all the major nations of West Asia, bar “Israel”. The first target will be Syria, and then, Saudi Arabia, whose new monarch is not deemed friendly. North Korea has been considered, but with its potent military arsenal and its capacity to wreak destruction on the puppet states of Japan, South Korea and “Taiwan”, it was thought better left for a later assault.

Genesis of the revolution: The trigger that set off the revolution cannot be isolated to any particular factor. Certainly, the domestic situation of disaffection with the collapsing economy, all round corruption, skyrocketing prices, food shortages (something hitherto almost unknown in the US) and burgeoning crime, has a major role to play. However, it is thought that the final precipitating factor was the planned invasion of Syria. It would never have been easy to justify invading Syria. The defeat in Iraq was so obvious it could no longer be propagandised away, though Afghanistan could be passed off as a NATO defeat, not an American one. The nuking of Iran could not hide the fact that the Iranian government not only survived but had been leased a few nuclear warheads by Russia to deter further attacks. The Jewish Lobby no longer had the power it once wielded after the Great Gaza Genocide, and “Israel” was a totally isolated international pariah. The “defence” of “Israel” was no longer an excuse on which an invasion could be launched. Some atrocity was needed, something so major indeed that the American people would be forced to rally to the flag. Something as much bigger than 9/11 as 9/11 was bigger than Tonkin Bay.

Accordingly, it was decided to sacrifice an American city; to cremate it utterly, to shock the world into silent acquiescence if not enthusiastic approval of “retaliatory” attacks. What city? They needed some place well enough known to arouse the proper pitch of shock and horror. Little Rock, Arkansas, would not do.

They chose San Francisco.

Now it is virtually certain that, had the city of San Francisco actually been destroyed as planned, there would never have had been an American revolution. Unfortunately, however, the NSA employee actually detailed with driving the truck borne nuclear bomb into San Francisco, arming it, and leaving, did no such thing. Instead, he went to the TV networks, called them all together for the scoop of all time, and broke the news. By the time he had been shot dead by snipers from a SWAT team he had even handed over, not just the bomb, but some recordings he had illegally made proving his contentions. It was then that the anger exploded.

The Bush administration denied it, of course. The bomb mysteriously “disappeared” for a crucial half an hour; when recovered, it was found to be a crude dynamite device, easily defused, most likely the work of a crank. The recordings were not so easily explained away, nor was the murder of the whistle blower, seen live on national television, for which the killers were never apprehended. Then the Bush administration declared that, notwithstanding, the invasion of Syria was now an imperative, since “terrorists” now had got the idea that American cities could be destroyed by bombs in trucks and they had to be destroyed before they could carry their intentions out.

This was met by an American people who were no longer the brainwashed sludge of 2001 and 2003. Already badly hit by military defeat and isolation abroad, unemployment and inflation at home, and deeply worried about the future, they rise in mass protest. Anti-war protestors swamp the cities. They are rapidly joined by allied groups disaffected with the Bush regime’s policies: the NAACP, gay power groups, anti-draft organisations (among whom mothers’ organisations are prominent), minorities (excluding Americans of Indian origin, who stick fast to Bush), anti-Zionist Jewish organisations, and environmentalists. Meanwhile, senior army and Marine commanders say unequivocally that they will refuse to obey orders if forced to attack Syria or any other nation that has not attacked the US. The Democratic Party is pushed into an anti-Bush stance by its own power base; and things are made a bit easier for it by the eclipse, the total collapse, of the Jewish Lobby. The Bush regime responds by mass arrests of Democratic politicians including Denis Kucinic, Al Gore, Barack Obama, and even Jimmy Carter. Hilary Clinton goes into hiding. Joe Lieberman, denouncing the Democratic Party as “treasonable”, joins the Republicans – but a significant section of the Republicans is now in revolt too.

It is at this moment that a massive rally is planned for Washington. Led, among others, by Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore, it says it will stay in place until it has forced the resignations of Bush and Cheney and their “cabal of evil” and the installation of a non-partisan interim administration which will oversee the elections.

This announcement can be said to be the point at which the Revolution can be said to have begun.

Events of the Revolution: Significant events can be best discussed on a day-to-day basis.

3 October: The rally is announced for the 10^th. It is immediately banned by the Department for Homeland Security as a “treasonable step”. The organisers say they will go ahead anyway, “with renewed vigour”, as Cindy Sheehan puts it in a TV interview. Orders to the TV station not to air that interview are ignored.

6 October: Thousands of protestors are already flooding towards Washington, ready to camp out if necessary, bringing tents and even prefabricated huts with them. Some roads are ordered closed off to traffic. But a call by the organisers for local Washington residents to rise in support brings a massive response; spontaneous pro-rally demonstrations break out all over Washington. Barricades are physically removed. Police open fire and kill eight people at various points in the city.

10 October: The National Guard is called out. All roads out of the city are – theoretically – blocked off. But the demonstrations now ravaging every neighbourhood and the protestors now arriving cannot both be contained; and more and more protestors enter the city. Local right wing gangs are hastily armed and let loose on them, but the protestors are also not all unarmed, and there is enough bloodshed that the goons withdraw.

Dick Cheney appears on television claiming that “The President is going to be unswerving in his determination to defeat the treasonous rabble who want to destroy our country.” He announces that there is no basis to the rumour that the draft is being reintroduced and asks that the anti-conscription segment among the protestors go home. His speech has no effect; the protestors have smelt blood.

11 October: Washington is crammed. The demonstrators are everywhere – all roads are jammed with them, and from the poorer sections of the city its black inhabitants also pour out in support. The police can no longer beat the mass of people back. The people do not simply, as before, march and disperse. They arrive, set up camp, and vow to stay until the Bush regime is gone. The parks, and even the front gardens of many homes, are full of people, pitching tents, shouting slogans, and coming, coming, coming.

So many are the arrivals that even the FOX network stops pretending it is a paltry few “anti-American traitors” and concedes that a massive anti-government demonstration is taking place.