Much too high a price

Some devastating letters in the Guardian today pointing up the 'international community' doublespeak over Iran. John Heawood (from York Stop the War) gives us a few facts which should have been dug up by the Guardian's journalists: Israel's nuclear weapons have existed for 30 years, but their existence is officially denied. It refuses to open up its plants for inspection, and won't sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty.

Even more astonishing is the equanimity with which Israel's threats against Iran are now used by the other western powers and are 'now discussed in the media in the same breath as sanctions,' according to another letter by Lawrence Glover. Yet that's what's happening.

While Obama's concessions over the missile shield have placated Russia, the quid pro quo is a tougher line on Iran. Horror at 'secret bunkers' (known about for two years) and missile tests play on a justified fear of nuclear weapons, but fail to look at the bigger picture, which is that Iran is surrounded by countries in possession of nuclear weapons.

Israel, for example, is estimated to have 200 nuclear warheads. Pakistan, India and China have nuclear weapons. The Middle East is surrounded by US bases and ships armed with nuclear weapons.

An attack on Iran genuinely frightens many people. Not surprising. Iraq has been destroyed by war. Iraqis who have visited recently talk about streams filled with sewage, a terrible water shortage and growing sectarian tensions exacerbated by the occupation. On the other side of Iran lies Afghanistan, sunk into a deepening and worsening war. Over a million people have died in these wars, even more are refugees, yet the answer from New York last week seemed to be more of the same.

If they send more troops to Afghanistan, it will take on more of the character of Vietnam, and will lead to the deaths of more soldiers. If they allow Israel to bomb Iran then the whole Middle East will become a theatre of war.

Few anywhere in the world can want the escalation of the war on terror (now given the anodyne name of 'overseas contingency operations' by the Obama administration), after what we have seen over the last eight years. One reason for the 12 percent vote for Die Linke in the German elections was the left party's strong opposition to the Afghan war.

There is a growing movement again, most importantly here in Britain. Unlike previous wars, military families are among the most disaffected at a war which they see as unwinnable and in which they understand their loved ones will be the ones to pay the price for bankrupt politicians.

Obama: the right resurgent

I went to New York and all I got was a lousy photo. That might be the sentiment of Mahmoud Abbas as he heads back to Palestine. It might also be that of Barack Obama. The summit between Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu and Abbas has been greeted widely as a predictable failure. Obama has been openly rebuffed in his attempts to halt Israeli settlements. Netanyahu and his far right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, are putting two fingers up at the very moderate demands of the Obama administration.

Obama's troubles are now much greater than this immediate issue. His domestic politics have become stuck in the mire over health care reform and that impacts onto his foreign policy decisions. The right wing staged a large demonstration in Washington recently where they used the backlash over health care to mobilise around a range of issues. As former president Jimmy Carter said, a lot of this is about racism. The coalition which helped get Obama elected seems nowhere near as mobilised.

The Israelis are not the only ones riding this wave. General Stanley McChrystal, head of US armed forces in Afghanistan, has predicted failure for the Nato mission there unless...they send in more troops. Obama is so far resisting this but behind McChrystal stand the Republican right who brought us this war in the first place.

My bet is that they will force Obama into a 'surge' of troops (the figure of 30,000 is suggested on top of the 68,000 already there) before too long. That will mean further pressure on the British and other European governments to 'do their bit' and send more troops themselves. Gordon Brown seems prepared to send another 2000 British soldiers, despite the death toll of 217 _ all but 6 of those killed in the last three and a half years.

The British remain the most devoted followers of US imperialism. Even Silvio Berlusconi wants to get Italian troops out, following 6 dead in a Kabul suicide bombing last week. Afghanistan and troop withdrawal is a major issue in the German election this weekend. Canada has set a date to withdraw.

Obama is in danger of creating a new Vietnam, with more and more troops dragged in to an unwinnable war. As the right increase their pressure, anti war sentiment is also growing, with recent US polls showing a majority believing the war is wrong. Something has to give.

While on the subject of Afghanistan, my quote of the week is from home secretary Alan Johnson, who expressed his 'delight' at the 'swift and decisive' way French police cleared the makeshift refugee camp in Calais yesterday. So a Labour government minister delights in children crying and homeless, thousands of miles from their homes and families. But why not? After all, we've bombed and invaded their countries in the first place. These refugees are mostly Afghans, also Iraqis and Eritreans. Spot the connection?

What's in a name?

One of the weirdest manifestations of hostility to Muslims is concern about children's names. A couple of months ago it was reported that nearly all the most popular names of new born boys in Brussels were of Muslim origin. The right wing journalist Max Hastings joined in with a column which complained that Mohammed was actually one of the most popular names of British babies, but this fact was disguised by the different spellings of the name being listed separately.

You might think that people would have better things to do than check different spellings of names and aggregate the totals. Obviously not. Maybe Max should check whether 'Max', 'Maxim' and 'Maximilian' are listed separately, or 'John' and 'Jon'.

But that's unlikely to happen because this isn't about propriety of name spelling. The not so sub- text is clear: the Muslims are taking over Europe and driving out traditional Christian values. This is a variation on the familiar arguments that 'it's not our country any more' or 'whites don't have rights in this country'. The truth is that this is not even just about Muslims. Hastings writes 'the Muslim population of Britain is growing extraordinarily fast'. He immediately follows this with 'In 2007, 28 percent of children born in England and Wales, rising to 54 percent in London, had at least one foreign born parent.'

Foreign born is not of course the same as Muslim. Many of these parents will be Australian, French, Italian. Some will be Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Sikhs. Conversely, many Muslim parents will not be 'foreign born' but second or third generation British.

Despite their 'Britishness' however, many Muslims suffer discrimination as a result of their race or religion. Muslims suffer some of the worst housing, poverty, education and jobs in Britain. They are a tiny minority in Europe (in Britain 2 million out of 60 million) but are portrayed in the media as dominant, aggressive and refusing to integrate, harbouring within their separate communities extremists and terrorists who want to destroy 'our way of life' and 'western values'.

This is a travesty. But the interesting question is why it happens and where it comes from. Of course there are the hardline racists and fascists. The BNP has increasingly campaigned over Muslims and Islam. The English Defence League have organised provocative demonstrations against Muslims. It was heartening to see so many people, Muslims and non Muslims, coming out onto the streets to stop them from marching in Harrow recently.

But the fascists have been encouraged at every turn by media and politicians, who have engaged in scapegoating. I see that Jack Straw is supposed to be willing to debate the fascist Nick Griffin on Question Time. But it was he who expressed concern at having to talk with women wearing the veil. Funny sense of priorities.

I was reminded of all this at the Stop the War student conference last week where the speaker from Fosis (the Islamic students' organisation) made a powerful speech quoting Shakespeare's Henry V. Max Hastings just wouldn't understand. He thinks 'it seems fantastically naive to suppose that many of these newcomers [to Britain] -or even their children born here- will start reading Jane Austen or tuning in to the Archers.'

If the Archers is the new 'cricket test' then we're really in trouble.

Solidarity forever

It's a tribute to all those who have campaigned for Palestine, especially in the last year over Gaza, that the TUC has passed a resolution calling for boycott and critical of the Israeli union Histradut. At the first hint that this had been accepted at a meeting of the General Council _ by a majority of one_ the Israeli embassy was on to Downing Street trying to get the Brown government to pressurise the general secretaries of the unions to soften their approach. Or at least that was the very strong rumour going round the conference in Liverpool this week.

Doesn't this add up to unwarranted interference into the affairs of the TUC? And isn't it shocking that the government immediately does the embassy's bidding.

But however much there are attempts to water it down, the resolution shows how deeply solidarity with the Palestinians runs within the British working class movement, as we saw over the demos in Gaza and the twinning and boycott campaigns which have sprung up everywhere.

I was in Liverpool for a Stop the War meeting which was to raise money for the Palestinians. The 600 strong meeting raised £4000 but also heard speeches about Palestine (George Galloway put a strong argument for a one state solution) and Afghanistan. The meeting was by far the biggest of the TUC fringe - held in the Adelphi hotel and also with a large number of Liverpudlians.

We were there the same day as Gordon Brown addressed Congress, where he devoted one sentence to the war in Afghanistan. As one speaker said, he couldn't even come and defend to the unions why he supported the war. My suggestion was that if he wanted to cut public spending he could start by scrapping Trident and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the experience of Liverpool this week is anything to go on, war and occupation remain key issues inside the working class movement. The shame of Brown is that while Tony Blair really seemed to believe in these wars with a messianic fervour, Brown doesn't _ but he still carries on with them .

Corruption: surely not?

The count for the Afghan election must be the longest in the world...and every week prolongs the agony. Now as the Afghan authorities plan to declare Hamid Karzai the winner with over 50 percent of the vote, there is great upset among the western governments who are squirming at the levels of fraud and corruption. Results from nearly 500 polling stations are being disqualified.

Remember three months ago when extra British troops were sent to Afghanistan ..to ensure that fair elections took place? The government knew then that wasn't going to happen. Hamid Karzai's government ranks among the top ten most corrupt in the world. But the western powers hoped that no one would notice the fraud. Fat chance of that with pictures of hundreds of ballot papers being filled in by one man.

Now there are calls for a rerun. But let's remember this isn't one of the countries, for example Iran or Zimbabwe, where the major powers criticise from afar and if they can send in 'indepedendent observers' to oversee the ballot (we could do with a few of those to oversee our MPs' expenses). This is a country occupied by the west, who drew up its electoral system and who backed Karzai as their man after the Taliban were defeated in 2001.


The talk of bringing democracy was a lie then and it is exposed now. But the cost of that lie is being paid by the now 213 British soldiers dead (all but 6 since 2006).

The latest casualty was a soldier involved in a raid to rescue a British journalist captured by the Taliban. Unfortunately , an Afghan translator was also killed in this raid. Afghan journalists are outraged that the Sultan Munadi's body was not rescued with that of the dead soldier, and that he may well have been killed by British fire.

Angry protests at double standards have greeted the death. It is also clear that negotiations which could have freed everyone safely were going ahead.

Another great success in winning hearts and minds.