Why Greece will be forced to leave the Euro unless it's offered a better deal ; the other problems with the EU and the Euro ; and the mass starvation they are distracting us from

(If this article is too long for you to read as a blog post see my website version with contents links between different sections)

Greece's keep the Euro, reject austerity option?

Greece has the option of rejecting the austerity bail-out package and disowning it's debts, while keeping the Euro as a currency, with or without remaining Euro-zone governments' permission. First Minister Alec Salmond similarly plans to keep the pound as a currency if Scotland becomes independent, based on many countries using the US dollar as their currency (1).

Despite the myth that defaulting on large debts leads to instant bankruptcy for debtor countries, South Korean economist Ha Joon Chang's book '23 Things they don't tell you about capitalism' notes numerous examples of indebted countries defaulting on their debts and immediately finding new creditors willing to lend to them (2).

This option might result in even worse austerity problems than the bail-out package in the short term though and might lead to the same end result of Greece leaving the Euro unless the bail-out package is renegotiated to reduce the austerity element, increase the stimulus element and crack down on tax havens to increase tax revenues for Greece and all other governments.

The remaining Euro zone countries could try to force Greece to drop the Euro by blanket trade sanctions, but that might lead to currency crises in Portugal, Spain and even Ireland and Italy, with the Euro zone ending up restricted to Northern and central Europe.

There is the possibility that some politicians and voters in Northern European countries might prefer this, but it would hurt their exports. Germany's exports have increased massively as a result of the Euro. This is because while the Deutsch mark was very high in value due to Germany's strong economy, making German exports expensive (as international trade involves currency exchanges), the Euro's value is based on the average strength of the economies of the entire EU and so is lower in value than the Deutsch mark. This made German exports cheaper to buy in other countries and so more competitive against their rivals exports (and against goods produced in the countries Germany exports too.) (3)

A Northern and central Europe only euro-zone, composed of stronger economies, would mean the value of the Euro would rise, making exports from Euro-zone countries more expensive for consumers outside the Eurozone (in countries using currencies other than the Euro), so reducing orders for and sales of those exports.

The problem with Greece keeping the Euro without a Eurozone agreement

More likely, Greece might run out of money if it tried to remain in the Euro without the agreement of Eurozone governments, as it's government can't print Euros - only the European Central Bank (ECB) can - and the ECB is mostly under the control of the German and French governments as the two largest economies in the Eurozone.

That could force Greece to return to the drachma as a currency.

A return to the drachma?

The drachma, based on the weak Greek economy, might well fall further in value at least in the short term due to the crisis.

This would have the effect of increasing the cost of all Greece's imports - most importantly fuel (especially oil, gas, coal and refined petrol), with Greece relying on imports for two-thirds of it's energy requirements (4).

That would certainly hurt the Greek economy, but would it hurt it any worse than EU (or Eurozone) governments' austerity measures and enforced sell-off of it's remaining assets at the bottom of the market (including state owned utilities which could bring in revenue if the economy recovered)?

A Greek government after the second elections in June might decide it wouldn't.

However it would also allow Greece to print it's own money and would make it's exports more competitive (it's problem being that it doesn't export enough at the moment and would need to export far more).

This could also (in the longer term, once it re-stabilised) allow Greece to invest more in e.g solar power to reduce its dependence on energy imports.

The need for Germany to allow Greece to re-negotiate the bail-out deal

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says agreements made must be honoured, but those agreements were made without any democratic consultation of the Greek people, with the elected Greek Prime Minister ( George Papandreou ) forced to resign when he suggested a referendum on the bail-out deal (5). He was replaced with an unelected bureaucrat Lukas Papademos, who had previously been vice President of the European Central Bank (which issues the Euro).

If there had to be referenda for countries to join the Euro, why wasn't there one an agreement to impose austerity for the majority in Greece, especially when austerity has shown itself to be counter-productive?

So why shouldn't 17% of Greeks have voted for Syriza, the Green-socialist anti-austerity coalition? And why shouldn't over 20% of them be saying they'll vote for it in the emergency repeat elections in June? (6) (Though the centre-right pro-bail-out deal New Democracy was ahead of Syriza in one poll it's apparent poll lead was within the margin of error of the poll ) (7).

Syriza may be unrealistic in demanding no austerity measures whatsoever - some cuts may be necesary - but it is right that there is no democratic legitimacy to the bail-out deal imposed by Euro-zone and EU governments so far; and right that the level of austerity demanded is counter-productive and unfair (as well as letting the richest Greeks off with tax avoidance through tax havens while the rest suffer.

Syriza has every right to use it's existing electoral mandate and any votes it gets in the new elections to demand a renegotiation of the terms of the bail-out deal. Stimulus measures such as public works and government funded infrastructure building and training programmes may well be necessary.

Austerity taken to the current extremes chokes off any chance of the economic growth that Greece requires to be able to pay off it's remaining debts. This only benefits Greece's creditors, primarily Eurozone governments and big US, British, German and French banks, who can continue to farm the Greek population for interest payments as long as they remain in debt (8). Is it a co-incidence that allowing tax havens also benefits them? Or that forcing the sell off of state utilities on the cheap benefits them and investors from Northern Europe and the US?

Given a fair deal Greeks might well be able to stay in the Euro - polls show most would prefer to.

Merkel's statements have already begun shifting towards suggesting there could be a bigger stimulus element to the bail-out package, which is encouraging (9).

(Merkel also suggested to the current caretaker Greek Prime Minister that the new Greek elections should be accompanied by a referendum on whether to stay in the Euro - which the PM said he could not as a caretaker government did not have the authority.) (10)

Why Greeks feel oppressed by larger countries :
the history

The reason that many Greeks feel oppressed by larger countries is that for centuries to present, they have been. Since gaining their independence from the collapsing Ottoman Empire in the 19th century they were invaded and occupied by German forces in World War Two.

After Greek Communist partisans kept several German divisions occupied for most of the war, the 'liberating' British forces' and regular Greek military's reward to them was to shell thousands of Communist demonstrators and partisans with artillery with Churchill's approval in 1944.

This was followed by a civil war from 1946-1949 in which the US and British governments backed the Greek military against Communist groups. Communists and suspected communists were hunted down and persecuted for decades.

Under the US backed military government of the 'Colonel's regime' from 1967 to 1974, the assassination, jailing, torture or disappearance of anyone critical of the ruling military was commonplace, with CIA assistance.

President Lyndon B Johnson responded to the complaints of the Greek ambassador to the UN about US operations in Greece and Cyprus in 1967 by saying "Listen to me, Mr. Ambassador! Fuck your parliament and your constitution! America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If those two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant’s trunk, whacked good.… We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your prime minister gives me talk about democracy, parliaments, and constitutions, he, his parliament, and his constitution may not last long."

So many Greeks see the current crisis as more of the same - few people have been killed (some demonstrators by police), but so far they have had larger countries governments imposing 'agreements' on them without any democracy.

The myth of laziness and corruption as the causes of under-development

German, British and French politicians have found it convenient to allow the myth that Greece's debt is mainly due to Greeks being lazy or corrupt. South Korean economist Ha Joon Chang points out that in the early 19th century, when Germany and Japan were less industrialised than France or England, Japanese and Germans were seen as lazy and backward. Chang comes to the conclusion that rather than changed culture resulting in development, cultural changes come about as a result of development, which is why people in poor, undeveloped countries are stereotyped as lazy. A society riddled with bribery is similarly usually the result of poverty and lack of economic and governmental development, rather than a cause of it (11).

James Steadway, chief economist at the New Economics Foundation, found figures suggesting Greeks on average retire older than Germans - and work 50% longer hours (12).

Tax avoidance and Evasion which increases government deficits and debts is facilitated by tax havens - why no EU or member state action on this?

While there was too much tax evasion in Greece, EU member governments have not closed down the tax havens which continue to facilitate tax avoidance and evasion by big banks, firms and the wealthiest across the EU and the world. Switzerland is a favourite tax haven for wealthy Greeks and Greek companies, while Greece's creditors include banks like the US based Goldman Sachs and the British based Royal Bank of Scotland, both of which, like most of the UK's FTSE 100 companies, are heavily involved in tax avoidance through tax havens (13) - (15).

This is surely a form of corruption on a grand scale - especially when parties in government are receiving large donations to party funds for election campaigns from the billionaires, banks and firms using the tax havens - and former government ministers involved in regulating (or more often de-regulating) industries end up on the boards of companies their department or government regulated.

The need to recycle the trade surpluses of stronger economies into developing weaker ones

Many economists (e.g Will Hutton and former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz) say the Eurozone's major weakness is the lack of any sufficient regional development fund to even out the inevitable trade imbalances between strong economies like Germany's and weaker ones like Greece, Portugal and Spain. A sufficient fund would act to recycle a large part of the trade surplus money of countries like Germany into investment in the weaker economies like Greece (16) - (17).

The insufficiency was exacerbated by the redirection of regional development funds from Portugal, Greece, Spain and Ireland to new member states as the EU expanded eastwards, arguably too fast, without referenda in the existing member states and without any EU minimum wage.

This is just as true of the EU as a free trade area as it is of the Euro-zone as a single currency area.

The US is a huge country made up of many states with significant differences in the strength or weakness of their economies, but this is moderated by large infrastructure and investment projects in poorer states by the US Federal Government.

Why complete free trade plus a single currency across countries at hugely different levels of development can't work

South Korean economist Ha Joon Chang's book 'Bad Samaritans' has something relevant to say here too. His book takes numerous historical examples to show that the British, US and other developed economies built up key industries over centuries by subsidising them and protecting them from the imports of foreign rivals. Only once they were strong enough to defeat any competition internationally did their governments become advocates of free trade - and even now advocate it for developing countries (and make it a condition of aid and trade deals) while often subsidising and protecting their own industries. Similarly foreign investment does not create growth first, but is attracted by building up a strong economy by publicly funded infrastructure and investment (18).

So is the EU free market and Eurozone project one that makes it impossible for weaker economies to ever develop their own industries when forced to open their markets to imports from stronger economies built up over centuries of protectionism? Does the Euro make things even harder for them by making the more developed economies' exports even cheaper? Should exceptions be made on the bans on protectionism and state subsidies for some of the industries of the weaker economies in the EU (just as poorer developing countries outside it desperately need to be allowed to protect and subsidise their agriculture and industries to develop them without being penalised by losing aid or trade deals as a result)?

Without these kind of exceptions being allowed for weaker economies, their electorates may end up concluding that they will be less badly off out of both the euro currency zone and the EU itself.

Contrary to Germany's image of itself as paying to bail out irresponsible Greeks, the current system gives all the benefits to the wealthier countries in the EU and the euro-zone with the costs largely paid by the poorer ones.

While this is true of trade between relatively developed nations of different economic strengths and levels of development within the EU and the developed world, it all holds even more true for trade between the developed countries and the almost entirely undeveloped former colonies in Africa and much of Latin America and Asia.

The need to resolve the developed world crises in order to deal with much bigger ones -
the starvation, hunger and lack of clean drinking water crisis in the developing world and the energy, resource and climate change one worldwide

Germany and the other strong economies in the EU should offer these kind of concessions in order to end the crisis quickly and move on to dealing with far more serious crises - such as the hundreds of millions of people in other parts of the world who are going without enough food to eat and without clean water to drink - and the coming catastrophic energy, resource and food crisis if we don't reduce our wasteful over-use of energy and resources.

Oxfam estimate that a billion people or one in seven of the world's population can't afford enough to eat each day for themselves or their children - a problem made worse by the rising price of food partly due to the rising price of fuel for transporting it, while the UN and other experts estimate between 800 million and 4 billion (probably more like 4 billion) have no access to clean drinking water, resulting in them suffering illness and often death from water borne diseases (19).

You can sign an avaaz petition which will be handed to G8 and other government's leaders at the G8 summit demanding they act to provide food security for the growing numbers of hungry people here.

The focus on developed world debt and currency crises is distracting from the need for the upcoming G8 summit to deal with those two major problems that result in millions dying each year from starvation, under-nutrition and lack of clean water.

The developed world crisis are relatively minor by comparison and only affect the majority here due to huge inequality, plus tax havens letting the wealthiest and big banks and firms avoid paying massive amounts of tax with the collusion of governments and politicans, plus rampant deregulation and the failure to re-regulate. Even with all that few people are starving or going without clean water here, though some are going hungry or dying of cold.

Sources

(1) = Scotsman 27 Jan 2012 'Alex Salmond: ‘Chancellor would bite our hands off to keep the pound’',
http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/politics/alex-salmond-chancellor-would-bite-our-hands-off-to-keep-the-pound-1-2081286 ; 'However, Mr Salmond said there were 67 countries in the world that were using another nation’s currency, “either in formal or informal monetary unions at the present moment”, while remaining independent.'

(2) = Ha Joon Chang (2010) ‘23 Things they don’t tell you about capitalism’, Allen Lane, 2010

(3) = Business Insider 20 Nov 2011 'Why German Taxpayers Should Be Forced To Bail Out Italians And Greeks',
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-20/markets/30421346_1_german-banks-german-state-eurozone

(4) = Trading Economics 'Energy imports; net (% of energy use) in Greece', http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/energy-imports-net-percent-of-energy-use-wb-data.html

(5) = guardian.co.uk 06 Nov 2011 'Eurozone crisis: Greek PM George Papandreou to resign', http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/greece-george-papandreou ; 'The socialist prime minister has faced growing calls to step down at home and abroad since shocking markets and world leaders with an ill-timed decision, announced last Monday, to put the 27 October bailout agreement to popular vote. After being publicly dressed down by French President Nicholas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the 59-year-old politician was forced to back down and shelve the referendum plan...'

(6) = Wall Street Journal Online 16 May 2012 'Greece's Radical Leftist Syriza Secures First Place- Poll', http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120516-711097.html

(7) = Bloomberg 17 May 2012 'New Democracy Moves Ahead of Syriza, Greek Poll Shows', http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-17/new-democracy-moves-ahead-of-syriza-greek-poll-shows-1-.html

(8) = Bloomberg 23 Feb 2012 'European Banks Take Greek Hit After Deal', http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-23/rbs-reflects-greek-debt-damage-with-credit-agricole-days-after-aid-accord.html ; On US banks see (12) below

(9) = guardian.co.uk 17 May 2012 'German stance on Greek crisis softens as eurozone fears mount', http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/17/germany-greek-crisis-eurozone

(10) = Guardian Business Blog 18 May 2012 'Eurozone crisis live: Row after Angela Merkel 'suggests Greece holds euro referendum'', entries for 6.15pm BST and 6.23pm BST, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/18/eurozone-crisis-stock-markets-greece-spain#block-31 and http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/18/eurozone-crisis-stock-markets-greece-spain#block-32

(11) = Ha Joon Chang (2007) ‘Bad Samaritans’, Random House, London, 2008 , Chapter 9 'Lazy Japanese and Thieving Germans'

(12) = New Economics Foundation (NEF) 16 Feb 2012 'Greece should reject the Troika and default on its own terms', http://neweconomics.org/blog/2012/02/16/greece-should-reject-the-troika-and-default-on-its-own-terms by James Meadway, Senior Economist, NEF

(13) = Bloomberg 06 Mar 2012 'Goldman Secret Greece Loan Shows Two Sinners as Client Unravels', http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-06/goldman-secret-greece-loan-shows-two-sinners-as-client-unravels.html

(14) = Scotsman 18 May 2012 'Greek debt deal set to cost RBS £825 million' http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/greek-debt-deal-set-to-cost-rbs-825-million-1-2154674

(15) = Guardian 11 Oct 2011 'Tax havens and the FTSE 100: the full list', http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/11/ftse100-subsidiaries-tax-data

(16) = Observer 13 May 2012 'This crushing debt trap threatens to bring down the whole of Europe', by Will Hutton , http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/13/will-hutton-euro-in-danger

(17) = guardian.co.uk 05 May 2010 'Reform the euro or bin it', by Joseph Stiglitz (former World Bank economist, also quoting nobel prize winning economist Robert Mundell) , http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/05/reform-euro-or-bin-it-greece-germany

(18) = Ha Joon Chang (2007) ‘Bad Samaritans’, Random House, London, 2008 , Chapter 2 'The Double life of Daniel Defoe - How did the rich countries get rich'? ; also Chapters 3 & 4

(19) = BBC News 13 May 2012 'Harrabin's Notes: Safe assumptions' , http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18020432

Independence for Scotland will be pointless if we destroy our country with incinerators, fracking, deregulation and government acting in the interests of billionaires and big firms who only want short term profits at everyone else's expense

Unfortunately I didn't get enough votes to be elected ( I got 246 first preference votes and 353 votes - about 6% of those cast , including 2nd and 3rd and 4th preferences before I was eliminated). Not bad on 3 weeks campaigning and a budget of £600. (I was standing as a candidate to be a councillor in the Clydesdale West ward of South Lanarkshire Council).

I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me and campaigned for me and everyone who took the time to talk to me while I was canvassing. I will pass on all the issues you raised to the four candidates who were elected Councillors for the ward - Eileen Logan (Labour) , Lynsey Hamilton (Labour), David Shearer (SNP) and Pat Lee (SNP).

I want to thank retiring SNP Councillor Ian Gray for leading opposition to the incinerator on the planning committee and all the other councillors who voted against it, plus the AGADI organisers and volunteers and objectors and the Lanarkshire Green Party who also continue to campaign hard against it.

Though I was against Conservative councillor Alex Allison's vote in favour of the incinerator and have little time for his party or it's policies, residents in Crossford told me he worked hard for them on other issues, before losing his seat in this ward in the recent election.

I'd also like to congratulate Independent candidate Ed Archer, who was elected a councillor in neighbouring Clydesdale North ward, centred on Lanark; and who is also opposed to the incinerator and to the wind farm at Cartland.

I will be among many people launching campaigns to demand to know why the SNP Scottish Government, led by Alec Salmond, are not using the huge powers they have over council decisions, through control of around 80% of councils' budgets, to get Dovesdale and other wasteful, expensive, toxic, incinerators closed down and replaced with recycling and anaerobic digestion plants - and ditto on stopping fracking and on opening old railway stations (including in Law, where many residents asked for this).

The Scottish Government have demanded a Council Tax freeze from local councils in return for granting them funding (unwisely in my view) and could use the same kind of pressure to get Dovesdale and other Incinerators closed.

They have stepped in to over-rule local council planning decisions on Donald Trump's white elephant golf course (built over an SSSI full of endangered species and also including attempts to force people out of their homes by bully-boy tactics).

Residents in Kilncadzow tell me the Scottish Government also granted appeals to allow wind farms to be built at Kilncadzow and Cartland within 500 metres of peoples' houses, after the local council for once listened to residents and refused planning applications in each case. (Like the residents i'm in favour of turbines sited correctly - but not that close to houses.)

So Salmond and the SNP Scottish Government will intervene to help billionaires and big firms do things that are wrong and harmful, but not to cut funding to South Lanarkshire Council until it closes a toxic, over-priced incinerator? If so what's the difference between them and the other big party leaders?

I love my country and it's people. Alec Salmond and the other big party leaders say they love them too (whether they define them as Scotland or Britain). If you love your country and it's people why would you expose them to over-priced, deadly, wasteful incinerators ; to fracking which will poison our fresh water supplies (an increasingly valuable commodity worldwide with shortages growing in much of the worldwide) and our air and people ; and why would you over-rule local residents and councillors to let arrogant, incompetent billionaires like Trump get their way?

If you really love your country Alec, prove it. Close down the incinerators. Stop the fracking. Open the old railway stations. Regulate the banks. Listen to the people, not to big firms and billionaires who only want short term profit for themselves.

I'll also campaign for independence for Scotland when the referendum comes - i'm all for it to keep us out of Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe more Falklands and Iran wars and financial crises caused by deregulation in which ordinary people die or suffer for the profits of arms and oil firms and banks, and the careers of politicians; plus getting rid of tax havens that impoverish the majority to avoid the wealthiest and big firms paying their share.

But independence will change nothing if we become an independent Scotland destroyed for it's people, because it's run for big business and billionaires' short term profits at the expense of suffering for the vast majority. That would be no better than being part of a UK which is being destroyed in the same way.

Independents, Greens and socialists may not have been able to beat the big parties yet, but by god, if you big party leaders are in office and keep behaving like you are now we'll point up your hypocrisy constantly enough in one campaign after another (at elections and between them) that you'll have to change to more decent policies or else risk losing to one of the other big parties- and then do the same to whichever big party is in next until we get decent policies from them or else win ourselves and bring decent policies in ourselves.

I'll leave the last word to Dougie Maclean.

The Conservative donor scandal shows why public funding of all candidates at elections would save taxpayers a fortune

I’m about to say that all candidates at elections should have their campaigns publicly funded and that we should make taking private political donations a criminal offence. This usually brings on the ‘not a penny more of my money for politicians and political parties’ response. I can understand why, but this response ignores the fact that by paying that money you would save 10 or 100 or 1000 times as much, because as long as parties can take private donations the super rich and big banks and companies will keep on being able to buy political influence with which to get themselves big government subsidies – which mean higher taxes or cut public services for taxpayers – and big tax breaks and toleration of tax havens – which mean the same.

When someone very wealthy or a big bank or company donates to a political party’s campaign funds they are usually making an investment. By funding a party for £50,000 or  £250,000 they may well end up getting subsidies or tax breaks of millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, sometimes even billions – or deregulation of their industry which lets them make big profits in the short term at the cost of a crisis and recession in the long term, like the financial crisis and subsequent recession, caused by banks and hedge funds being able to lobby for deregulation with the aid of big donations.

A cap on private donations to political parties or to candidates’ campaign funds will leave lots of loopholes. Where it’s been done in the US the billionaires and big firms just split a big donation up among 10 or 100 or 1000 employees to get round the cap.

The only way to avoid loopholes and end the influence of big money on politics is to have a strictly limited level of public funding of all candidates in all elections – enough to get one single colour, double sided A4 election communication leaflet printed for every household in the constituency, ward or list area, plus enough to run a website and maybe petrol costs for canvassing.

One of the reasons the government hasn’t re-regulated the financial sector properly is that donations from banks and financial firms to the Conservatives have doubled since 2005 (according to research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism).

In addition we’d need a ban on elected officials and civil servants who are regulating an industry being employed by any company in that industry for say 5 to 10 years after leaving office – and similarly banning anyone employed in an industry regulated by a government body from being in any elected or government body involved in regulating that industry for the same period. This would eliminate the “revolving door syndrome” in which big companies buy influence with government by offering paid employment or cushy jobs to people in government who do them favours.

Then make it a criminal offence for any elected official or political party to accept any donations to their party or election campaign – and similarly a criminal offence to break the rules on ‘revolving doors’ between government and business.

That might all cost millions at each election, but would save between hundreds of millions and tens of billions between elections.

The big parties will be opposed to this, because it would eliminate their funding advantage over small parties and independent (non party) candidates.

We can expect that the Conservative donations for access scandal will lead them to suggest a ‘reform’ which would benefit them – one putting a maximum cap on donations from organisations, but not from individuals, aiming to reduce trade union funding to the Labour party while maintaining their own donations from big banks, hedge funds and some of the very wealthy.

Labour and the Conservatives and Lib Dems will all keep suggesting greater transparency – making large donations known to the public through the register of members’ interests. That would be an improvement, but wouldn’t eliminate big money’s influence on politics, it would just make it better known.

Why Gaddafi running out of fuel or money or being killed would not guarantee an end to the war in Libya

There have been reports that Gaddafi’s forces may be close to running out of fuel altogether, mostly assuming that this will force his side to surrender. This assumption is based on the North African campaigns in World War Two, in which Rommel was eventually forced to surrender due to lack of fuel for his tanks (1).

However, while that’s possible, there is no guarantee of Gaddafi’s forces surrendering if this happens. They might, but it’s as or more likely that without a negotiated peace they would switch to using guerrilla, insurgent, terrorist or resistance tactics (choose whichever term you prefer), as happened in Iraq after the defeat of it’s military. The fact there are no large numbers of foreign troops occupying Libya (only a few special forces trainers and spotters for airstrikes)  might make this less likely or a smaller insurgency than in Iraq, but it’s still a possibility that has to be taken into account.

Gaddafi’s forces seem to only control one functioning refinery – at Zawiyah – and the oil pipeline to it has been cut by the rebels (2). This should certainly mean that sooner or later his forces will run out of fuel for their tanks, truck mounted Grad rocket launchers, mobile artillery and pick up trucks. How soon (or not soon) is still anyone’s guess, as no-one knows how much oil Gaddafi has stored in reserve in barrels in Tripoli that could be sent to the refinery. (This also raises the question of why NATO hasn’t bombed the refinery and why it tried to persuade the rebels not to cut the pipeline – issues I’ll cover in a separate post).

The claims by Libyan defectors that Gaddafi was running out of fuel and money were made before the 13^th of June though (and seem to mostly have been made by one defector – the former head of Libya’s central bank). He claimed that this would happen within days or a couple of weeks (3). So either it’s going to happen very soon, or else these claims are just based on guesses, wishful thinking, or are propaganda designed to encourage any of Gaddafi’s people hearing it to defect.

Fuel prices have certainly gone up massively in the parts of Libya controlled by Gaddafi’s forces (starting even in May), but it’s possible this is partly due to Gaddafi prioritising supplies to his armed forces (4) – (5).

Similarly reports that Gaddafi is running out of money are no guarantee of his regime falling, nor would an airstrike killing him (a strategy which has failed for over 100 days now and has never worked anywhere else). The assumption that Gaddafi running out of money will lead to the surrender of his forces assumes their primary motivation is money. That may well not be the case.

Assuming killing Muammar Gaddafi alone will end the civil war may be an assumption that turns out to be true, but could equally be as false as the assumption in Iraq that all the insurgents were Sunni and Ba’athist ‘dead enders’ who supported Saddam and that they would surrender when he was gone. In fact most of the insurgents weren’t hardline Ba’athists at all and many of them were Shia.

Bombing carried out by the US air force and the British RAF from 1991 to 2002, combined with sanctions, repeatedly failed to either kill Saddam or generate a military coup against him, so hopes of Gaddafi’s own forces, generals or ministers overthrowing him may be wishful thinking too.

US and NATO military planners are generally meant to plan for the “worst case scenario”, but instead most of their plans (and those of the governments giving them orders) are hugely optimistic and ignore the possible pitfalls and false assumptions involved. As a result most of them either fail, or only succeed at great cost in lives.

Saif Al Gaddafi has repeated that his father will accept elections overseen by international observers in return for a ceasefire (6) – (7). He may or may not be telling the truth, but given all the potential ways this war could drag on with heavy civilian casualties without a peace settlement, taking up the offer might be a sensible course for the rebels and NATO.

Even if it doesn’t work they at least get more Libyans and more people and governments around the world on their side by showing they were willing to try for a peaceful solution. Currently their refusal to accept any offer of negotiations that doesn’t include Gaddafi and his sons giving up power entirely before negotiations even begin is making a long civil war more likely. They have plenty of justifiable reasons to be angry at the Gaddafis’ dictatorship and to want rid of them, but the reality is that at least giving negotiations a try would be the best option.

(1) = The Economist 16 Jun 2011 ‘The colonel is running on empty’,http://www.economist.com/node/18837167?story_id=18837167

(2) = Channel 4 News 29 Jun 2011 ‘Tripoli Pipeline Attack ‘endgame’ for Gaddafi’, http://www.channel4.com/news/tripoli-pipeline-attack-signals-endgame-for-gaddafi

(3) = Bloomberg Business Week 5 Jul 2011 ‘Qaddafi Running Out of Money, Fuel, Ex-Central Bank Head Says’, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-06-13/qaddafi-running-out-of-money-fuel-ex-central-bank-head-says.html

(4) = See (1) above

(5) = Guardian.co.uk 05 May 2011 ‘Libya faces fuel crisis as oil supplies dwindle’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/05/libya-fuel-crisis-oil-supplies

(6) = Guardian 4 Jul 2011 ‘Gaddafi's son says western powers attacking Libya are 'legitimate targets'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/04/gaddafi-son-western-powers-legitimate-targets

(7) = Independent 16 Jun 2011 ‘Gaddafi would agree to supervised election, says son’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gaddafi-would-agree-to-supervised-election-says-son-2298234.html

Libya - NATO and the rebels should accept Gaddafi's offer of elections as a chance to avoid a long war with more civilians killed by both sides

Gaddafi last week offered elections supervised by international observers if the rebels and NATO would agree to a ceasefire (1). Given even the chance that this might resolve the civil war and bring a transition to democracy under whoever wins those elections, this should be preferable to continuing a war in which both Gaddafi’s artillery and tank attacks and NATO airstrikes are killing civilians – and in which both Libyan civilians and migrant workers are suffering shortages of food, water and medical treatment (2) – (3).

Even if arms and training provided to the rebels by Qatar, the Saudis and NATO allow them to start defeating Gaddafi's forces they would probably have to take Tripoli in the same kind of assaults Gaddafi's forces have made on other cities, with heavy civilian casualties inevitable

Libyan rebels and the US government refused the offer of elections almost instantly (4). It’s completely understandable that, if Gaddafi did order troops to kill unarmed demonstrators, many of the rebels refuse to consider accepting any deal that does not involve the Gaddafis first giving up power, but if the aim is to provide a transition to democracy without many more civilian deaths, the offer of elections may be the best chance of getting this and they should reconsider.

There is no way any war will be over quickly or without many more deaths and it’s likely that even if one side did win, the losing side would resort to guerrilla or terrorist tactics, like the insurgency or resistance in Iraq. Taking up the offer of elections at least offers a chance of a way forward that avoids this.

(1) = Independent 16 Jun 2011 ‘Gaddafi would agree to supervised election, says son’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gaddafi-would-agree-to-supervised-election-says-son-2298234.html

(2) = Amnesty International 06 May 2011 ‘Misratah – Under Siege and under fire’http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19443

(3) = AFP 22 Jun 2011 ‘NATO backtracks on denials over killing of Libyan civilians’, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/nato-backtracks-on-denials-over-killing-of-civilians/story-e6frg6so-1226079527332

(4) = Al Jazeera 16 Jun 2011 ‘Libyan rebels reject election offer’,http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/06/201161621397118437.html

Egyptians don't trust Mubarak to oversee transition - and even if the Muslim Brotherhood took power they couldn't be worse than the dictatorship

Egyptians couldn’t be worse off under the Muslim Brotherhood than they are under Mubarak – and the Brotherhood may well neither form a single party government, nor be extreme in government.

They are not the only opposition in Egypt either – Mubarak has targeted trade unionists for opposing him – and was so afraid of Ayman Nour -  a liberal candidate in the last (rigged) Presidential elections he had him jailed to ensure he couldn’t win the election.

Mubarak's recent statement is unlikely to be accepted by the opposition (1). As their spokesman Mohamed ElBaradei had said before it “The American government cannot ask the Egyptian people to believe that a dictator who has been in power for 30 years would be the one to implement democracy. This is a farce.”(2)

Photo: Mohamed ElBaradei - photo from The Independent

The widespread view that Egyptians might be worse off if Mubarak’s dictatorship is overthrown and the Muslim Brotherhood come to power is misplaced. Reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International show that under Mubarak for 30 years the Egyptian people have been jailed without trial, tortured by beatings, electric shocks and sexual violence. The victims include many children (3) – (4).

So even if the Muslim Brotherhood were to come to power in Egypt and turn into a Sunni equivalent of Iran’s semi-theocratic government, Egyptians would be no worse off than they have been under dictatorship – just as Iranians are no worse off (though little better off) under the semi-theocracy they have now than they were under the Shah’s dictatorship – and Mubarak’s past actions show he sees liberals and trade unionists as just as much a threat to his rule as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Propping up Mubarak’s dictatorship will not make it less likely that they will come to power either – just as President Carter backing the Shah’s dictatorship in Iran in 1979 to the last moment did not prevent Khomeini coming to power (5) – (6).

In fact a peaceful transition to democracy, with Mubarak persuaded to step down, would make it less likely that any one faction or party could exclude others from Egyptian politics.

Both Professor Fawaz A. Gerges in his book ‘The Far Enemy’ and ‘Self Inflicted Wounds’, a report produced for the US military, found that the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic political parties are enemies of Al Qa’ida and other Jihadist terrorist groups, who consider them to be apostates for taking part in what the Jihadists see as the western system of political parties and elections (7) – (9).

Professor Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics, expert on jihadist terrorist groups

The same sources found that the Brotherhood broke with the extreme teachings of Qtub long ago (10).

Other Islamic parties elected to power around the world have shown themselves to be no friends of Al Qa’ida and not nearly so extreme as the Taliban. Hamas after winning the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections have fought gun battles against allies of Al Qa’ida in the Gaza strip (11). The AKP Islamic party government in Turkey has won two elections, governed for 8 years, continued to hold free and fair elections and accept their results even when it lost many seats in local elections ; and has been no more extreme than European Christian Democrat parties. After Al Qa’ida bombed the British consulate and banks in Turkey, the AKP government arrested, tried and jailed those responsible (12) – (14).

Even the Afghan Taliban has distanced itself from Al Qa’ida after the latter brought a US invasion down on their heads (15).

No doubt the Brotherhood would be a major political force in Egypt after Mubarak. There is no way to know whether they would win elections as the sole governing party, by part of a governing coalition or become the main opposition party – but that is because many Egyptians support them.

Propping up dictatorships has only strengthened fundamentalist parties and much worse terrorist groups.

If we want to weaken Al Qa’ida and reduce fundamentalism then allowing a transition to democracy in Arab countries is the way forward.

The Brotherhood are not the only political force in Egypt either. There are socialists, trade unions, liberals, greens and even conservatives and nationalists who oppose the dictatorship (16) – (18).

In the last Egyptian Presidential elections (rigged as usual) in 2005 the candidate Mubarak feared most was not the Muslim Brotherhood’s (which he banned), but Ayman Nour of the liberal El Ghad party, who he had jailed during the election and then tried and convicted on trumped up charges after it, to ensure he couldn’t lose the election to him (19) – (22).

Ayman Nour of the liberal El Ghad party was jailed for standing against Mubarak in the 2005 presidential elections and only released in 2009 - photo - Time magazine

 All these groups, along with the Brotherhood, have accepted former UN IAEA head Mohamed El Baradei, a liberal rather than an Islamic fundamentalist, as the chief spokesperson for all of them (23).

Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Kamel el-Helbawy hardly talks like a new Khomeini either, having recently said

“A new era of freedom and democracy is dawning in the Middle East and Arab world. That's more important than declaring that a 'new Islamist era is dawning', because I know Islamists would not be able to rule Egypt alone. We should and would co-operate – Muslims, leftists, communists, socialists, secularists…. …….Dictators like Mubarak have always told the west, wrongly, there is no difference between Islamists like the Brotherhood and some violent groups who are real fundamentalists………The west is always afraid that if the Brotherhood came to power it would end freedoms or do something [negative] with Israel. But I stress that the Brotherhood are among the people who defend democracy in full, and like to see democracy prevailing, because democracy gives them some of their rights." (24)

Kamal Helbaway of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

So, whether Helbawy means what he says or not, if the worst case scenario happens and the Brotherhood take power in Egypt, Egyptians will no worse off than they were under Mubarak – and the worst case scenario may not happen – they may end up much better off in a democratic system that includes the Brotherhood as one political party among many.

The Guardian also reports that “The Brotherhood has said it would put the Camp David peace accords with Israel to a referendum if it took power.”(25)

The Brotherhood are also criticised for the threat they supposedly pose to Israel and their links to Hamas, whose armed wing has been involved in terrorism against Israeli civilians.

The problem with this argument is that Mubarak has links to the Israeli government, which is involved in ordering and authorising the killing of Palestinian civilians on a daily basis (26) – (30).

The US government both funds much of the Israeli occupation and has been involved in it’s own war crimes including targeting civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan (31) – (32).

So the Brotherhood’s critics really don’t have a leg to stand on on this issue – if it was close to Hamas it would be doing nothing they themselves don’t do on a larger scale.

(1) = BBC News Middle East ‘Huge protests fan Egypt unrest’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

(2) = Reuters 30 Jan 2011 ‘ElBaradei urges U.S. to abandon Mubarak’, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/30/us-egypt-usa-elbaradei-idUSTRE70T30920110130?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

(3) = Human Rights Watch 25 Feb 2004 ‘Egypt’s Torture Epidemic’, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2004/02/25/egypt-s-torture-epidemic

(4) = Amnesty International World Report 2010 – Country Report – Egypt,http://report2010.amnesty.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa and http://report2010.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_EN.pdf#page=77

(5) = Lawrence Freedman (2008) ‘A Choice of Enemies’, Weidenfield & Nicolson, London, 2008, Chapter 4, especially pages 64 - 72

(6) = Kenneth M. Pollack ‘The Persian Puzzle’, Random House, New York, 2005, chapters 4 – 6

(7) = Fawaz A Gerges (2005) ‘The Far Enemy – Why Jihad Went Global’, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005, pages 9 -10 (on torture and dictatorship radicalising people into terrorists and jihadists), pages 110- 116 – on Jihadist/terrorist groups and Islamic fundamentalist political parties hating and despising one another (and Bin Laden’s deputy Zawahiri hating the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood); pages 93 -4 on torture of Zawahiri by Egyptian dictatorship leading him to join Al Qa’ida to build organisation to take revenge

(8) = Assaf Moghadam & Brian Fishman (editors) 16 Dec 2010 ‘Self-inflicted wounds : Debates and divisions within Al Qa’ida and it’s periphery’, Harmony Project, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, http://www.ctc.usma.edu/Self-Inflicted%20Wounds.pdf ; see especially pages 158 - 162 - or 168 to 173 if looking at the pdf browser's page count

(9) = Loretta Napoleoni (2005) ‘Insurgent Iraq’ Constable & Robinson, London, 2005, Chapter 3 (pages 61 – 62 of paperback edition)

(10) = See (5) to (7) above

(11) = Observer 16 Aug 2009 ‘Hamas destroys al-Qaida group in violent Gaza battle’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/15/hamas-battle-gaza-islamists-al-qaida

(12) = Justice and Development Party (Turkey), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_and_Development_Party_%28Turkey%29

(13) = BBC News 30 Mar 2009 ‘Turkish PM's party slips in polls’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7970448.stm

(14) = Guardian 17 Jan 2007 ‘Turkey jails al-Qaida cell for consulate bomb’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/17/turkey.alqaida

(15) = CNN 06 Oct 2008 ‘Sources: Taliban split with al Qaeda, seek peace’,http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/06/afghan.saudi.talks/#cnnSTCText

(16) = Wikipedia list of Egyptian political parties,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Egypt#The_known_parties_of_Egypt

(17) = Amnesty USA 27 Jan 2011 ‘Egyptian Protests Day 3: Next Steps’, http://blog.amnestyusa.org/middle-east/egyptian-protests-day-3-next-steps/ - ‘This was a protest that crossed class, ideology and religion’

(18) = Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 17 Feb 2010 ‘Labor Protest Politics and Worker Rights in Egypt’, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/events/?fa=eventDetail&id=2816

(19) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_Nour

(20) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El-Ghad_Party

(21) = Human Rights Watch Sep 2005 ‘From Plebiscite to Contest? Egypt’s Presidential Election’, http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/mena/egypt0905/egypt0905.pdf

(22) = Human Rights Watch 6 Dec 2005 ‘Egypt: Ayman Nur Trial Badly Flawed’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2005/12/06/egypt-ayman-nur-trial-badly-flawed

(23) = Reuters 30 Jan 2011 ‘ElBaradei urges U.S. to abandon Mubarak’, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/30/us-egypt-usa-elbaradei-idUSTRE70T30920110130?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

(24) = guardian.co.uk 30 Jan 2011 ‘Egypt protests: Cairo prison break prompts fear of fundamentalism’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/30/muslim-brotherhood-jail-escape-egypt

(25) = See (22) above

(26) = See page link below and sources listed for it,http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/Israel-Palestine/notdemocratsversusterrorists/

(27) = See page link below and sources 21 to 45 listed on ithttp://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/sevenliesthatkill/index.html

(28) = Amnesty International 2010 annual report – Israel and the occupied territories,http://report2010.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_EN.pdf#page=129

(29) = Times 29 Jul 2008 ‘Palestinian child shot dead by Israeli soldiers’,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4425395.ece

(30) Herald (Scotland) 14 Feb 2009 ‘Long-term truce for Gaza near agreement, says Hamas’,http://www.heraldscotland.com/long-term-truce-for-gaza-near-agreement-says-hamas-1.902709 ‘In the West Bank city of Hebron, staff at a local hospital said a teenage boy was killed by Israeli army fire during a clash between troops and stone-throwing Palestinian youths…Doctors at Alia hospital named the dead boy as Izzadine Jamal, 14. They did not know if he was among those attacking the Israelis….The army said dozens of Palestinians hurled stones at a military guard tower next to an Israeli settlement and a soldier shot the ringleader.’

(31) = See links below and sources listed on them on war crimes including targeting civilians in Iraq,http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/who%27s_right_on_Iraq/bothsides/ and http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/replytogray/Iraq/

(32) = See links below and sources listed on them on similar actions by US forces in Afghanistan,http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/03/one-more-push-for-what-in-afghanistan.html and http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/08/killings-of-civilians-by-nato-forces-in.html

US, British and French governments try to minimise democratisation in Tunisia

The reactions of democratically elected governments across the world, from the US to France, to the revolution in Tunisia, show they are playing their usual public relations game of pretending to back democracy in other countries while actually backing dictatorships and trying to minimise any democratisation in them.

The British government has called for the “full inclusion of all legal parties in the formation of an interim Government.” The word “legal” here may seem unexceptional. However “legal” in this case means legal under the existing laws of the dictatorship of Ben Ali and his one party state, with opposition limited to parties approved by them, which excludes much of the democratic opposition (1).

Similarly US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for “free and fair elections in the near future”.and EU governments are keen to offer “speedy” help to organise elections (2) – (3)

However, as demonstrators in Tunisia and exiled opposition party leaders in France have pointed out, elections coming quickly will benefit Ben Ali’s RCD party and those parties they have allowed to be legal, but exclude others.

Under the existing Tunisian constitution, written by the former dictator, President Ben Ali, rapid elections would also prevent anyone who is not already a member of the Tunisian parliament (and so approved by the former dictator) from standing for election as President – something outlined in one of the leaked US embassy cables (4).

That’s why many of the opposition are demanding that the interim government exclude former members of Ben Ali’s government;  that a new constitution be drawn up before any elections for a new parliament or President ; and that even elections for members of an assembly to draft a new constitution should be delayed until the exiled and banned opposition parties can organise for the election of that assembly.

Tunisian demonstrators have chanted “We want a new parliament, a new constitution, a new republic! People rise up against the Ben Ali loyalists!” and “Bread and water and no RCD!” (6)

So the calls for the inclusion of “all legal political parties” and rapid elections are both attempts to limit the amount of democratisation in Tunisia and to try to ensure that while the dictator has had to go, much of his regime will stay and continue to run Tunisia’s economy at the beck and call of the IMF for the benefit of EU and US and other companies, not for the benefit of the Tunisian people, as some Tunisian academics and writers have pointed out (7) – (8).

Those policies, which have helped cause hunger and poverty for many Tunisians, are as much a cause of the revolution as the dictatorship that enforced them was

Watch out for governments' rhetoric about the need to restore stability. Stability is their long standing euphemism for ensuring other countries are governed in the interests not of their own people but in the interests of the elites in the countries "concerned" about their stability. Stability is often a euphemism for a client dictatorship too.

The French government was President Ben Ali’s closest ally, but is not alone in backing dictators who will sell out their own people for the benefit of foreign companies in return for a share of the profits.

The British, French and American governments are among the many who continue to support dictators like the Saud family monarchy in Saudi Arabia (monarchy here sounding much nicer than torturing dictatorship that executes people without a trial, but amounting to much the same) and the Mubarak dynasty of supposed Republicans, but definite dictators, in Egypt.

While mouthing platitudes about the desirability of greater democracy and reform, they continue to reward these dictatorships with arms for oil deals and – in the case of Egypt – a large amount of military aid.

Saudi Arabia is even less democratic than Iran, with no elected officials with any real powers whatsoever, at any level of government – and – as in Iran - with many people executed each year after being tortured into making confessions.

So it’s hardly surprising to see that the governments of the most powerful democracies are trying to restrict rather than aid democratisation in Tunisia.

There are serious risks with any plan to exclude Ben Ali’s RCD party from the interim government – it could produce violence or a counter-coup which could prevent any real democratisation at all– but there are risks just as big with allowing too many of them who were too close to Ben Ali to stay in government and possibly prevent a total re-writing of the 1988 constitution and the legalisation of banned opposition parties.

Update 23rd January 2011 - The Guardian is also reporting that "The new Tunisian government is still holding between 500 and 1,000 prisoners accused of often vaguely worded terrorism offences, despite a promise to release all political detainees." (9)

(1) = Hansard, House of Commons, 17 Jan 2011, column 549, 3.15 p.m,http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110117/debtext/110117-0001.htm#1101176000003

(2) = DipNote US department of state official blog 15 Jan 2011 ‘Secretary Clinton’s Statement on Recent Events in Tunisia’, http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/recent_events_tunisia

(3) = See (1) above

(4) = Guardian.co.uk 17 Jan 2011 ‘US embassy cables: Finding a successor to Ben Ali in Tunisia’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/49401

(5) = AFP 19 Jan 2011 ‘Tunisian leader vows 'total break' with old regime’,http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110119/wl_mideast_afp/tunisiapoliticsunrest

(6) = AFP 17 Jan 2011 ‘Tunisia appoints national unity govt amid turmoil’, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110117/wl_africa_afp/tunisiapoliticsurest

(7) = Guardian 18 Jan 2011 ‘Tunisians must dismantle the monster Ben Ali built’ by Soumaya Ghannoushi, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/18/tunisia-ben-ali-dictator-coalition

(8) = Guardian.co.uk 19 Jan 2011 ‘Tunisia needs real freedom’, by Intissar Kherigi, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/19/tunisia-democratic-unity-government

(9) = guardian.co.uk 11 jan 2011 'Hundreds of political prisoners in Tunisia yet to be released', http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/21/political-prisoners-tunisia-released

Predictions for 2011

There will probably be the beginnings of a double dip recession in the UK and the whole of Europe due to 1920s / early 30s style austerity programmes. Growing demonstrations and possibly even riots will take place against the cuts. As unemployment and poverty rise, support for right-wing extremist parties such as the British National Party will increase across Europe, though there will be some revival in the poll ratings of the radical and moderate left and Greens too. Support for pro-austerity conservatives like Cameron in the UK, Merkel in Germany and Sarkozy in France will erode further as cuts start to bite and they're squeezed between the left and centre left on the one hand and the far right on the other.

The SNP will no longer be the largest minority party in the Scottish parliament after the 2011 elections - Labour will be, due to the recession and the SNP being seen as the incumbents in Scotland (plus much misleading Labour, Conservative and media propaganda about Megrahi, who is almost certainly not the Lockerbie bomber and never had a fair trial).

Lib Dems will lose most of their Scottish parliament and council seats. As a result Labour, while taking some seats from the SNP and Lib Dems, will be unable to re-form its past coalition with the Lib Dems - and will be forced to rely on the Greens the way the SNP currently do.

The Greens will have picked up a couple of seats from the Lib Dem collapse on the second vote and from the ongoing civil war between the SSP and Solidarity (unless that’s been patched up by May, which seems unlikely) and will have more influence than they do now.

Labour will win the Oldham by-election with a greatly increased majority, with Lib Dem votes slipping away to Labour and the Conservatives.

Republican control of congress will make it impossible for Obama to get any further meaningful continued welfare support for the unemployed or economic stimulus through congress and put more pressure on him to be more nationalistic and belligerent in foreign policy.

The growing extremism of the Israeli government will make another Gaza style war likely - and wars with Lebanon, Syria or even Iran a high risk.

If the double dip recession spreads globally (with about the only thing currently militating against it being Chinese economic stimulus programmes and increased minimum wages) World War Three over disputes between the allies of the US on the one hand and China and Russia on the other becomes a bigger risk (e.g Georgia, the two Koreas, Pakistan vs India).

War between India and Pakistan over Kashmir or continued Pak military support for terrorist groups in Kashmir and India is also a serious risk.

NATO forces will begin a withdrawal from Afghanistan and an attempt to get a coalition government there, as they have no way to defeat the Taliban while our Pakistani military and Saudi "allies" continue to arm them, partly with arms and funds our own governments have given them - and cannot target the Pakistani military as they require its co-operation to get enough supplies through the ports and passes of Pakistan into Afghanistan.

This will not stop the US or its NATO allies continuing to sell arms and provide military aid to these supposed "allies" as a means of making profits for their own arms and oil firms.

Jihadist terrorist attacks worldwide will continue to grow due largely to the continued US and European policy of backing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Blockade in Gaza, their support for dictatorships in Jordan, Saudi, Yemen and Egypt - and US cruise missile attacks and US and British special forces operations in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Iyad Allawi is back as Saddam Mark II

but don’t worry, his torturers and death squads are secular like Saddam’s, not like that scruffy, rabble rousing ‘sectarian’ Sadr

So Iyad Allawi (or Ayad Allawi), the man groomed by the Bush administration and Blair government to be their client Prime Minister in Iraq, seems to have won the latest elections there. He was first appointed as unelected ‘Interim Prime Minister’ by the Iraqi Governing Council in 2004 (that Council having been appointed by US ‘governor’ of Iraq George Bremer), but lost elections to a Shia list, with the first two elected Prime Ministers since the invasion having been first by Ibrahim al Ja’afari and then Nouri Al Maliki, who both formed a coalition government largely made up of the Iranian backed ‘Supreme council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq’ and it’s successors, along with the Kurds ;and an uneasy and unstable alliance with the Sadrists (also Shia, but less willing to accept the continuing presence of foreign troops).

Allawi lost the first national elections despite the Bush administration providing him with covert aid and conspiring with him to rig the election (according to UN officials), despite Blair sending Labour party official Margaret McDonagh to advise Allawi in his election campaign; and despite some officials under Allawi , threatening to cut food rations to people who didn’t turn out to vote (There was also rigging on the part of the Shia list and the Kurds according to UN staff in Iraq). (1) , (2)

There has been some condemnation of former Ba’athists being banned from standing and even some being threatened with having their candidacies revoked retrospectively after they’ve been elected. Most of these are Sunnis on Allawi’s secular electoral list. This is due to what Seymour Hersh called “the redirection” in US policy in Iraq when the focus switched from using Shia proxies to target Sunnis who were seen as ‘dead enders’ for Saddam and Ba’athism, back to using Sunnis and secular Iraqis to target Shia who are simplistically seen as all ‘pro-Iranian’. Certainly not all Ba’athists were murderers – anyone wanting a career under Saddam had to become a Ba’athist or else hope they could flee into exile without being killed. Allawi does not seem to have been a great democrat or interested in upholding the law or his people’s basic rights either under Saddam or since his overthrow. (3), (4)

There’s been little discussion of Allawi’s own past. Seymour Hersh interviewed former CIA agents and Iraqis who knew Allawi in the 1960s and 70s. They said he was involved in helping Saddam into power and posed as a doctor to assassinate Iraqi dissidents under Saddam from at least 1971 till 1975 (the CIA also having been involved in backing Saddam in the 1960s through till 1991). This is supposedly a sin washed away by his break with Saddam and Saddam subsequently sending assassins to try to kill him, most famously in a failed attempt with an axe in London in 1978. From exile in the 1990s Allawi ran a programme of bombings of cars, cinemas, newspaper offices and Ba’ath party offices in Baghdad as a CIA proxy. Under Allawi as ‘Interim Prime Minister’ (and under his successors Ja’afari and Al Maliki) US-trained ‘police commandos continued the torture methods used under Saddam (even employing many of Saddam’s former Mukhabarat secret police and torturers) and began the ‘Terror in the hands of justice’ TV programme in which torture victims confessed live on television to being terrorists before being executed.(5) – (12)

Some western diplomats say they also ,witnessed Allawi personally shoot six suspected insurgents in front of them(13).

Saddam was also ‘secular’, also relied heavily on the Sunni minority for support and was also backed by the US, British and French governments right up until the invasion of Kuwait - all through the period in which he gassed the Kurds in his genocidal (but secular) ‘Anfal’ campaign and invaded Iran (leading to the deaths of millions, but never mind, he was secular). After the 1991 Gulf War he switched all oil contracts to Russian, French and Chinese firms and their governments became his supporters.

The only major difference between Saddam and Allawi is that Allawi is from a Shia family rather than a Sunni one (though, like Saddam, his family is not a religious one) and has some claim to be democratically elected, though his methods in government are likely to continue to be those of Saddam – torture, murder and execution without fair trial (often with the conviction based on a confession made under torture). It’s true that he hasn’t attempted wholesale genocide against the Kurds, but then he doesn’t have the free hand, nor the huge flow of money and arms that the governments of most of the world (especially the US) gave Saddam during the Anfal and the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s

Moqtadr Al Sadr is meanwhile demonised as a man “who maintains an overlord's hold over more than two million Shia Iraqis”, despite the fact this “overlord’s hold” is based on his widespread popularity among the poorer Shia of Baghdad, who do not see their interests being represented by the main Shia list of Iranian backed politicians from wealthier backgrounds, nor by Allawi with his links to the occupying forces. Could the hostility to him in the media be anything to do with briefings against him by British and American government and military spokespeople? Could those have anything to do with his opposition to the presence of foreign forces in Iraq? A balanced account of Sadr does not suggest that he is either particularly pro-Iranian (though US attempts to capture or assassinate him forced him into exile in Iran) and he seems to have tried to restrain Sectarian violence by his followers against Sunnis, with many of those responsible having broken away from his organisation (For details and sources on Sadr and the Sadrists go to http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/GetSadr/) (14).

Propaganda from the British and US governments has now come full circle from lauding Saddam for his ‘secularism’ against Iranian extremism in the 1980s to condemning him for his unprovoked aggression against Iran in 2001 till the last couple of years and now back to supporting Allawi as a new ‘ secular strong man’ who will ‘oppose extremism’ and ‘provide stability’. Sceptics might wonder whether being tortured or summarily killed without any trial by Allawi’s death squads who are ‘anti-sectarian’ or ‘secular’ is really that different from being tortured by those who justify their actions on religious grounds, or if the governments of the ‘free world’ just prefer Allawi because he’ll do their bidding by giving their firms oil contracts and opposing the Iranians just as Saddam did – plus allowing them military bases in Iraq to secure it’s oil and make it easier to get hold of Iran’s in future.

(1) New Yorker Magazine 25 Jul2007 ‘Get Out the Vote -
Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq’s election?’ by Seymour Hersh ,http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/25/050725fa_fact?currentPage=4

(2) = Dahr Jamail / IPS 01 Feb 2005 ‘Some just voted for food’, http://www.countercurrents.org/jamail010205.htm

(3)= Guardian Comment Is Free 29 Mar 2010 ‘Iraq's new ruling elite show contempt for voters’, by Toby Dodge, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/29/iraq-elite-contempt-voters

(4) = New Yorker magazine ‘The Re-direction’ by Seymour Hersh
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh

(5) = New Yorker magazine 28 Jan 2005
, ‘Annals of National Security : Plan B’ by Seymour Hersh’, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/28/040628fa_fact?currentPage=5

(6) = Aburish, Said K (1997) ‘A Brutal Friendship’ , Indigo, London, 1997&1998, paperback, pages136-143

(7) = Aburish, Said K (2001) ‘Saddam Hussein – The Politics of Revenge’, Chapter2, esp p54-9

(8) = New York Times 9 Jun 2004 ‘THE REACH OF WAR: NEW PREMIER; Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90's Attacks’ ,http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0912F83D540C7A8CDDAF0894DC404482

(9) = Human Rights Watch 25 January 2005 ‘Iraq: Torture Continues at Hands of New Government -
Police Systematically Abusing Detainees’ ,http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/01/26/iraq10053.htm

(10) = Amnesty International 6 Mar 2006 ( AI Index: MDE 14/001/2006 ) ‘Beyond Abu Ghraib: detention and torture in Iraq’ ,http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde140012006

(11) = Amnesty International 20 Apr 2007( AI Index: MDE 14/020/2007 ) ‘Iraq: Televised 'confessions', torture and unfair trials underpin world's fourth highest executioner
’ ,http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140202007

(12) = Times 07 Jul 2005 ‘West turns blind eye as police put Saddam's torturers back to work’, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article541123.ece

(13)= Sydney Morning Herald 17 Jun 2004‘Allawi shot prisoners in cold blood: witnesses’ ,http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/16/1089694568757.html

(14) = guardian.co.uk 28 Mar 2010 ‘Exiled Iraqi sheikh may hold key to power in Iraq’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/28/iraq-al-maliki-shia-al-sadr