Re: SC56

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7673

The World is passing through a Critical Phase in Human History
Anti Imperialist Conference 2007 Declaration

The world is passing through a very critical phase in human history. In the name of globalization the capitalist class has brought down most murderous attacks, vicious persecution, and ruthless exploitation on the working masses. The ferocity of this attack can be gauged by the ever deteriorating living conditions of the working people. Retrenchment and lay-off are increasing by leaps and bounds. Steep decline in real wages and pauperization of the peasantry, particularly in the so-called third world countries have become the order of the day. On the other hand, “fighting terrorism” and championing “democracy” are the new ploys in the hands of the imperialists to launch barbaric military aggression on countries, to forcibly occupy them and to engineer regime changes. This is the “new world order” that the imperialists led by USA want to impose.............

...............The imperialists gleefully proclaimed that the world has become unipolar and that with the disappearance of the “evil empire” of Soviet Russia the main danger for war and threat to world peace has disappeared from the scene. They claimed that the world market is now integrated to a single entity, in which all the countries will have opportunities for growth and prosperity. The slogans of privatization, globalization and liberalization were aggressively paraded and it was touted that these measures would open the doors to unfettered progress of the whole humanity. But even as these golden dreams were being peddled to a confused populace, crisis in the capitalist-imperialist economy further intensified. This is a result of the inherent contradiction in the capitalist system. Spectacular technological advances increased the productive capacity many times over, but the purchasing power of the people was being continuously squeezed. Competition between the imperialist powers for shares in the shrinking world market is becoming more and more fierce. At first USA was the unquestioned leader in the imperialist camp because of its economic and military strength. But the economic domination of USA is now being challenged; European Union and Japan have emerged as contenders. Capitalist Russia after getting over the initial chaos following the overthrow of the socialist system is trying to expand its sphere of economic and political influence. To counter this, USA by extending the NATO eastwards is trying to militarily encircle Russia. China, after being converted to a capitalist state through counter-revolution, is also flexing its muscle to emerge as a global economic force and to assert its dominance in South Asia. To counter the Chinese domination USA is trying to form a bloc with India and other countries like Australia, Japan, Israel. Thus we see that the number of competitors is getting more while the market is being progressively squeezed. This is the crisis in imperialist economy – excess capital and shrinking of market.

Globalization is a desperate attempt of capitalism- imperialism to come out of the crisis in the capitalist economic system. GATT and WTO came into being as crisis management measures to somehow patch up a regulated trade system and division of market according to strength of capital. But globalization has completely failed to meet the crisis that is rocking the capitalist world. Industrial growth in all the capitalist countries, including the advanced countries, has slowed down; there is severe recession, widespread unemployment, rise of poverty, and slashing of social welfare measures. With each passing day it is becoming increasingly clear that the real objective of globalization, privatization, liberalization is to squeeze the last drop of blood from the impoverished workers and to establish the all-round domination of the western imperialist powers over the underdeveloped world...............

................. WTO is a tool in the hands of USA and other big imperialist powers to pressurize the weaker nations to open up their markets for unrestricted loot and plunder and to allow the imperialists to have free access to their resources. In the name of ‘reforms’, they are forcing the weaker countries to remove subsidies and lift all barriers against penetration of foreign goods and capital, but at the same time they themselves are preserving subsidies and resisting external penetration into their own market. The economy of the poor countries depends a lot on agriculture, but their agricultural products cannot compete with the heavily subsidized products from the advanced countries. Further, imperialism is exerting its control over the agriculture of these countries by making them dependent on imported seeds, genetically engineered products, fertilizers etc. Privatization-globalization-liberalization is used as an instrument of the imperialist strategy. Opening up of the market, privatization and structural reforms dictated by the World Bank and IMF are impoverishing the people and are leading to a stark polarization between the rich and the poor. Not only is the difference between the rich and the poor increasing within each country, but the gap between rich and poor nations is also widening.

But as the exploitation is getting more, so also is the people’s resentment towards globalization increasing not only in the poorer countries, but also in the advanced capitalist countries. Within USA itself people’s opposition to globalization is growing. American capital instead of being invested in local industry is exported abroad to manufacture goods using the cheap labour power and resources of those countries. This is leading to closing down of local industry, resulting in widespread retrenchment and unemployment. People are starting to question whether free trade is such a good thing. Demands for review of all trade agreements, starting with NAFTA are being voiced.

Lenin pointed out nearly hundred years ago that it is the crisis in capitalism that poses the greatest danger to world peace and is the basic cause that leads to wars. In today’s globalized world all the capitalist-imperialist countries are engaged in trade wars, with each one trying to obstruct penetration by the others into its own market, while demanding unrestricted right to enter into others’ markets. Bitter disputes are coming out into the open between the three major imperialist groupings, USA, European Union and Japan, each trying to expand their shares in the global market and thereby multiply their political influence. On the other hand the fissure between the developed countries and the resurgent capitalist countries are becoming wider. The latter are trying to group together to oppose the agenda of the G8 countries. In this scenario of deep division and bitter fight between them, all the imperialist countries have the compulsion to constantly strive to enlarge their own reserve markets. Another point to take note of is that in the recessive capitalist world market today the military establishments are the richest and chief consumers all over the world. For artificial stimulation of the sagging economy, the capitalist states of both the imperialist and developing countries are taking recourse to militarization of economy. Buying and selling of arms have become a major international trade. Hence, for release of stockpile of arms, engineering local and partial wars, fomenting army-based coups, propping up military dictatorships, have become a compulsive necessity of imperialism. Side by side, the sharpening contradiction among the imperialist powers is making real the danger of trade war hot up to military confrontation. Increasing militarization of economies of the imperialist powers is accentuating this contradiction and is leading to outbreaks of war.

To meet its own economic crisis US imperialism finds it a compulsion to control as many economic, political and military-strategic levers as it can. The Bush administration openly proclaimed in its ‘National Security strategy of the United States of America’ that the US has the right to use military force anywhere in the world, at any time it chooses, against any country that it believes to be a threat to American interests. US imperialism refuses to respect as a matter of international law the sovereignty of any other country, and reserves the right to get rid of any regime, in any part of the world, that is at the moment, or may in future become, hostile to what US considers to be its vital interests. It will not hesitate to act alone if its attempt to enlist the support of the international community does not succeed. The US will not be restrained by the convention of international law. This assertion in words was matched with action in the savage military attack on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and in the continuous economic sanction and threat of military action against Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, Cuba.

West Asia has now become the main theatre of battle between American aggression and the people’s aspiration for emancipation. The 9/11 incident gave USA the pretext to launch its ‘War on Terror’ and unleash vicious military offensive in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Afghanistan war was waged with an eye to open up and control the corridor to the oil reserves of Central Asia. With this end in view they established military bases in Kyrghizstan and Tajikistan. And war on Iraq had the design to establish control over the vast oil resources of Iraq. Oil is of strategic significance in shaping the international balance of power. Saudi Arabian oil is already under the control of USA and it wants to establish full control on the rich Iraqi oilfields so that it will have complete monopoly over the resources of oil in the Middle East. Oil would give it the power for world domination, the power to control the lifeline of economy of any country. The weapon of oil supply could be utilized to thwart the aspiration of any nation that challenges US supremacy. Dick Cheney once said, “Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well." Saddam Hussein had signed development and exploration contracts with China, France, India, Indonesia and Russia. This was against the US interest and by establishing political control over Iraq USA wanted to set these aside in favour of US and possibly British companies. Earlier America had a monopoly on the oil trade, with the U.S. dollar being the fiat currency, but Iraq broke ranks in 1999, started to trade oil in the EU's euros, and profited. America wanted to take over Iraq so that it could block the entry of the EU and its euro into the international trade and make America's position as the dominant economic power in the world unassailable.

But there are other dimensions to the American design. If the United States can install a puppet regime in Iraq, that would serve as a platform from which it can accomplish a complete reordering of the political set up in West Asia and establish its hegemony. It would not only give the United States greater leverage to act against countries like Syria and Iran, but would give it the power to crush the growing anti-imperialist movement in the Arab world and help its close ally Israel to put down the freedom struggle of the Palestinian people. This is a part and parcel of its imperialist drive to maintain and expand its reserve market in all these countries for exploitation of their resources, cheap labour power and market by its finance capital, crushing by whatever means all opposition and resistance to its machinations. As we have already said the other compulsion of USA to wage this war is to revamp its sagging economy, and to artificially stimulate its ever-shrinking market by boosting up the war industry and effecting stock clearance of arms and ammunition through warfare. The US economy stands on quicksand; its industrial growth rate is declining towards nil; there is large-scale retrenchment and lockout, growing unemployment, rampant financial corruption. So it is an imperative necessity for the administration to divert people’s attention from domestic economic problems by fanning up war jingoism.

A 2000 document, entitled “Rebuilding America's Defenses”, written by the Republican think-tank, brings out the deep design of the American policy in West Asia. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein”. Control of the Gulf and its oil resources, the document added, was necessary for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests. The document borrowed the conceptions put forward in a 1992 Pentagon strategy document. It envisioned the control of Persian Gulf oil as part of an “American grand strategy” that would “discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”. Thus the war was planned and executed to further the designs of the US ruling class for global hegemony. It was aimed not just against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, but at Europe, China, Japan and any other power that could conceivably challenge US world domination...................