A short history of state crimes

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The rise of the modern state has brought with it a new capacity for total war, genocide and other forms of state imposed mass mortality, such as famine and sanctions, that earlier thinkers could not have imagined. My political journey began with Marx and Lenin moving through Keynes and Hayek. The father figure of modern Thatcherism, the Austrian economist and writer Friedrich Hayek was a profound libertarian thinker. Currently, everyone talks about Ayn Rand, who I haven't read, but Hayek should be up there too.
While studying a masters, I read 'The Road to Serfdom' which he penned in 1944 at the height of the war of totalitarians - Hitler and Stalin. He tried to explain how the state could never substitute itself for the hidden knowledge and ingenuity of individuals and entrepreneurs and claimed that socialism would lead to slavery. At the time one could see his point - although he was a lonely voice in the 1940s when state collectivism was widely employed to fight the war and was seen as part of an inevitable future. The book had a big effect on me, and added to my growing understanding of the failures of authoritarian collectivism, primarily Stalinism and its offshoots.
It was undeniable that Marxism had failed to foresee the capacity of all-powerful states to oppress and terrorise the population, often in the name of Marxism.
This does not mean that I think Hayek was right, or that Thatcherism was good - far from it. We live in a world in which the reality of oligarchical capitalism is far more relevant than the theory of the small firm. Small firms and workers ought now to be in alliance against oligarchy and corporatism. Traditional free market theory only serves to obscure the reality of a world dominated by giant firms.

For a quick summary of the death toll of the 20th century, by decade, we can see the consequences of war, state terror, imperialism and genocide. I have only included those incidents of more than 0.5 million dead.

Decade
1900-1909 - Belgian Congo - 5-8 million
1910-1919 - First World War - 10 million - (Germany, UK, France, Russia); Armenian Genocide - 1.5 million (Turkey)
1920-1929 - Russian Civil War famine - 7 million (USSR, UK, France, Japan)
1930-1939 - Stalin's Ukraine famine and terror - 10 million (USSR)
1940-1949 - Second World War and Holocaust - 40 million in Europe (32 million Central/Eastern Europeans, 7.5 million Germans); 20 million in Asia (Japan); Bengal famine and Partition - 4 million (UK)
1950-1959 - Korean War - 4 million (USA, UK, China); Chinese revolution - 2 million; Algerian war of Independence - 1 million (France)
1960-1969 - Great Leap Forward famine and Cultural Revolution - 32 million (CCP-Mao Ze Dong); Vietnam war - 3 million (USA); Biafra civil war - 2 million (UK, France); Indonesia, Suharto coup and terror - 0.8 million (USA, UK)
1970-1979 - US War in Cambodia-Laos - 1 million (USA), Khmer Rouge - 1.7 million (China); Bangladesh independence war - 1 million (Pakistan, USA); Uganda - 0.8 million (Idi Amin-Obote);
1980-1989 - Soviet Afghan war - 1.3 million (USSR); Iran-Iraq war - 1 million (Saddam Hussein, USA, UK, France, USSR); Mozambique - 1 million (South Africa); Angola - 0.5 million (USA, South Africa);  Ethiopia civil war and famine - 1 million (USSR)
1990-1999 - Rwanda genocide - 0.8 million; DPR Korea famine - 1-2 million (Korean Workers Party); Iraq sanctions - 1 million (USA, UK).
2000-2009 - DR Congo - 4 million (various states - Rwanda, Uganda); Iraq war - 1 million (USA, UK).

In eight out of 11 decades, the consequences of leftist revolution and terror caused millions of deaths. The UK was involved in major mass mortality incidents in seven out of 11 decades, in some cases a junior partner; USA six out of 11. I include countries where they provide support to the genocidaires, such as US support for Indonesia and Pakistan, UK support for Nigeria in Biafra, and Soviet support for Mengistu in Ethiopia.

I still find this record hard to deal with as I was brought up a leftist and continue by and large to be one. Perhaps the very profound nature of the social struggles made such violence in part inevitable. On many occasions, the brutality was a consequence of attacks from imperialism and counter-revolutionary violence. The brutality of revolution does not happen in a vacuum - it happens in a life-threatening environment. Revolutionaries do not always start out as mass killers. However, the apparent success of the Bolshevik revolution with its liberal use of revolutionary violence had severe consequences throughout the 20th century. Only its failure and collapse in 1989-90 brought an end to the power of the example of October 1917. I too was a Leninist. I now prefer the model of participatory democracy as emergent in Latin America.

Imperialism of one kind or another is the biggest culprit in the great majority these atrocities and mass death incidents - if we include Soviet, as well as German, British, French and US imperialism. The biggest mass death incidents are the Nazi war and genocide (33m), Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution (34m), Japan's war in Asia (20m), Stalin's famine and terror (11m) and the First World War (10m).

Imperialism features in nine out of 10 decades, but the scale of deaths only reaches the truly staggering in Belgian Congo, First World War, and the Second World War at the hands of nazism and Imperial Japan. By contrast the biggest mass mortality incidents under communist rulers Stalin (10 million) and Mao (32 million) happened in peacetime, mostly as a result of state-induced famine.

The failure of both social democracy and other lefts to reap benefits from the Great Financial Crisis in part stems from from this legacy. If there is a future for actually existing social democracy it is by forging new paths out of new situations. The Arab Spring shows too that revolution does not have to have a leftist hue. A coherent ideology and unity are required to forge a vision for a different society be it secular or religious. The ability to win a significant minority, or as pollsters say a plurality, of society and to mobilise them to support such a vision is the point at which an altered society can be born. Today the people have knowledge and voice at their fingertips and need not rely on all-powerful leaders. The Greens in the West arguably have taken the mantle now from socialists, and may yet combine with various forces in resistance to the might of global capitalism. In Latin America it is variations on Bolivarian and populist democracy. But for now, despite the crash, capitalism in various guises (neoliberal or statist) prevails more than ever in all corners of the globe.

Innocence of Muslims - a Psy-Op 'October Surprise'?

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A number of bloggers and commentators have suggested that the makers of the anti-Muslim film, Innocence of Muslims, could be involved in a Psychological Operation. The film-maker was initially identified as an Israeli-American property developer and then later described as a Coptic Christian. If you wanted to rile up conservative Islamic forces worldwide and spark conflict and violence in the Middle East, having an inflammatory film made by an Israeli / Coptic Christian (delete as appropriate) is the way to do it. The fact that an election is approaching in the USA while Israel's prime minister is doing everything he can to get Romney elected and President Obama out, so America attacks Iran, and you have the makings of the 'October Surprise' - that is an international crisis that destroys the incumbent's re-election campaign. Of course this is all rather neat and so, knowing that real life is rarely that neat, one must be careful at jumping to conclusions. However there is something remarkable about the timing of the uproar over this film, given the international context and immediate effect it has had.
Of course there is a lot of debate over who would orchestrate this, and this is where the different ideological bent of bloggers comes into play. Israel? CIA? Bilderberg-Globalist Elite? It all depends who you read...

I enjoyed this comment which is cynical but compelling in its acerbic analysis/conjecture:

Yes, the poorly scripted psyop involving a poorly scripted 13 minute video of spewing hate is falling apart at the seams. Apparently they have to fix the fixed narrative yet again. They want everyone to know that Jews weren’t responsible and the state of Israel had nothing to do with it. Go figure. Obama is sending in the drones to attack various targets in retaliation for this “surprise” attack that now appears wasn’t a surprise after all. To add insult to injury, President Obama praised the Libyan security forces for their efforts to protect our ambassador during the attack. Those are the same forces that reportedly moved Ambassador Stevens to a less secure location and then told the mob where they could find him.

Sam Klein, who has been quoted as saying he helped make the crappy 13 minute film school student garbage, is now claiming that Sam Bacile isn’t Jewish or Israeli and that his name isn’t even Sam Bacile. He claims he helped with the film not ever knowing the real identity of the film maker and of course Jeffrey Goldberg at theAtlantic “reports” these facts uncritically. “Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know “Bacile”‘s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. “After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.” Just forget all the previous reports where he supposedly identified himself as a Jewish Israeli/American. Just put that aside…. “Consider all the contradictions: small ones, true, like in one account he is 52 and in another he is 56. To the AP he is “a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew” and to the Times of Israel he is “Jewish and familiar with the region.” And what about that bit at the end of the statement to the Times of Israel—that “even Jesus” should be “in front of the judge”? That sounds like someone who is trying to provoke more than just Muslims. A lot of things don’t add up here about the claimed identity of the filmmaker.” Sarah Posner Forget the fact that according to the Times of Israel the guy claimed that “everyone” has to be put on trial including Jesus and Muhammad… not Moses by the way. He doesn’t mention Moses having to stand before the “judge”, whatever that means. “The main problem is I am the first one to put on the screen someone who is (portraying) Muhammad. It makes them mad,” Bacile said. “But we have to open the door. After 9/11 everybody should be in front of the judge, even Jesus, even Muhammad.” Times of Israel But forget all of that. According to a guy who is known for targeting children at school with his fear-mongering hate filled messages, Bacile isn’t Jewish. and if you can’t trust a known liar and fear-monger who targets children with his hate, who can you trust? Meanwhile, send in the drones. Obama is unleashing the drones to attack certain areas of Libya. Looks like they are going to attack strongholds of the Green Revolution under the guise of this ridiculous crap (which, it turns out, was planned in advance by the same people the State Department used to destabilize Libya in the first place Comparisons have been made to Kony 2012. They are apt in my opinion. Curiously, President Obama praised Libyan security personnel for their efforts to protect our ambassador during the “attack”. I guess he isn’t aware that a Libyan official admits that the security forces moved Ambassador Stevens to a less secure location and then told the mob where he was. “Mr. Obama also offered praise for the Libyan government, noting that Libyan security forces fought back against the mob, helped protect American diplomats and took Mr. Stevens’s body to the hospital. “This attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya,” he said.” New York Times “Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building, deemed safer, after the initial wave of protests at the consulate. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocate, and that building then came under attack.

Hillsborough shows that large conspiracies exist

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How many police officers, government officials, politicians and journalists were involved in the distortion and cover up of the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 Liverpool fans died in 1989? A not insignificant number. An independent investigation with full access to 400,000 documents has finally concluded that the police systematically distorted the witness accounts to deflect blame from themselves. In the words of Michael Mansfield QC, who represented the Hillsborough families, this was the biggest cover-up in British legal history. This may be hyberbole - but the scale of the cover up and criminal misconduct is hardly in doubt.

Within days of the event, the South Yorkshire police fabricated stories of Liverpool fans causing the mayhem that led to so many deaths and fed them to the media. The truth is that police terribly mishandled the event leading to the deaths of scores, and then tried to cover up their terrible mistakes by doctoring the statements of many witnesses.

For those who support 9/11 truth but are told that large-scale conspiracies are impossible because too many people would need to be involved - therefore someone will talk - the Hillsborough example disproves this. Or rather it proves that someone 'talking' is not enough - there also need to be people willing to listen to the truth and for authorities to take action. The cover-up and distortion of what happened on that day was maintained for more than two decades by South Yorkshire police with the support of the mainstream media. Only an independent investigation with full access to all the documents was able to uncover the truth. The fact is that the reaction of the South Yorkshire police to their own culpabilities was to doctor the witness statements of the fans who were there that day and to denigrate them.

How is that different than the way on 9/11 the FBI and CIA suppressed information, including black boxes, CCTV recordings and witness statements in order to protect people in power and their own institutions from public accountability? There are dozens of witnesses who heard explosions at the World Trade Centre - but their accounts have been dismissed. When persons in authority have something to lose by admitting the truth, in particular when their own role in the event may amount to criminal, fatal, negligence, they have the motive to suppress the truth. And that truth can be denied for many years, even when alternative accounts and witnesses to what really happened are shouting from the rooftops. A whole community, in the case of Liverpool fans, were slandered as hooligans, thieves and liars. There are huge differences between Hillsborough and 9/11, but the similarities are there - inasmuch as both involve a disastrous handling of an incident by the authorities causing mass civilian casualties, and a subsequent cover up of the truth, assisted by media collusion. If 23 years is how long it takes for the truth to be admitted, we are half way there on 9/11 truth.