Imperialist War & Aggression

Issue 40 - November-December 2012

By Andrew Martin

“You’ll notice in the last couple of months, the [Syrian] opposition has been strengthened.

Issue 38 - February-April 2012

By Andrew Martin

For a year, the Syrian government of President Bashir Assad has led a bloody crackdown on protests calling for democracy and freedom. Assad and his father Hefaz al-Assad have headed a repressive regime for four decades.The death toll continues to rise as troops loyal to Bashir use heavy weaponry against the opposition.

Issue 37 - December-January 2012

By Hamish Chitts

Partners in war crime:

Prime Minister Gillard and US President Obama leaving a press conference in Canberra. For the sake of world domination by US capitalists these two have supported and implemented plans that have cost the lives of millions of people.

Issue 36 - October-November 2011

By Max Lane

On September 5, the Cuban Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Libya affirming, among other things, that “the Republic of Cuba does not recognize the National Transition Council or any other provisional authority and will only give its recognition to a government legitimately constituted in that country without foreign intervention and through the free, sovereign and sole will of

Issue 35 - September 2011

By Doug Lorimer

The six-months-long military stalemate between the 42-year regime of Libyan despot Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the imperialist-backed forces of the Benghazi-based National Transition Council was broken by the rapid advance of the NTC forces into Tripoli last month.

Issue 32 - May 2011

By Doug Lorimer

British government memos obtained under freedom of information requests by oil industry researcher Greg Muttitt have revealed the oil profits were a key motivator of the UK’s participation in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. On April 19, the British Independent daily published a major story about these disclosures.

By Nick Everett

On the morning of March 20, waves of NATO jet fighters and bombers launched an air attack against Libya’s air force, air defence systems, airports, roads, ports and ground forces with hundreds of cruise missiles, under cover of UN Resolution 1973, pushed through the Security Council on March 17.

Issue 31 - April 2011

By Kathy Newnam

The so-called humanitarian intervention in Libya is nothing of the kind. It is a war in which the US-led imperialist forces have used the widespread sympathy for the Libyan people’s uprising to justify the latest chapter in their war for empire.

Issue 30 - March 2011

By Kathy Newnam

As Colonel Muammar Gaddafi desperately clung to power and the people of Libya faced the most brutal battle yet in the wave of uprisings spreading through the Arab world, there were suddenly calls from the West for some form of intervention to “protect” the Libyan people – who had already demonstrated their ability to protect themselves.

Issue 29 - February 2011

By Bayardo Rodrieguiz

The North Korean military’s artillery-fire upon the disputed territory of Yeonpyeong Island last November was the latest response to an unceasing campaign of provocations by the US military and its South Korean ally. The Yeonpyeong incident resulted in at least four fatalities.

Issue 28 - November-December 2010

By Reinaldo Garcia Perera

[This is the text of a speech given by Reinaldo Garcia Perera, consul-general to Australia for the Republic of Cuba, to a meeting in Sydney on October 10 protesting against the US blockade of Cuba.]

Dear friends: Thank you all for being here today. Your presence confirms the power of mobilisation of the Cuban Revolution and your lasting and strong support for it.

By Hamish Chitts

The federal Labor Party government formally agreed in early November to create an even tighter linking of Australian foreign policy and military forces with the policy and forces of the US government.

By John Percy

[This is an abridged and edited version of a talk to the International Conference on Diego Garcia organised by the Mauritian socialist group Lalit October 30-November 2. See the report on the conference].

Issue 26 - September 2010

By James Petras

Binghamton, New York State – The following is an abridged version of an article first published on August 8 (on James Petras’ website). Since then, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and newly-inaugurated right-wing Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos have restored diplomatic relations between their two countries.

By Hamish Chitts

Complete with flight suit, then US President George W. Bush flew by fighter jet to the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln in May 2003. In a performance staged for the cameras before a huge banner reading “Mission Accomplished”, with thousands of troops cheering him on, Bush declared the “end of major combat operations” in Iraq.

By Nick Everett

“I’ve been waiting for [this] for a long time”, tweeted Daniel Ellsberg, in reference to the release of more than 92,000 pages of classified US military documents by the whistle-blower website Wikileaks, on July 25.

Issue 25 - August 2010

By Hamish Chitts

While the ALP and the Liberal-National Coalition put on grand theatrics on how different they are from each other (usually with no actual basis) when it comes to foreign policy neither party seems willing to display any difference.

By Nick Everett

On July 1, US President Barack Obama signed into law a new bill that imposes unilateral US sanctions targeting foreign companies that sell petroleum products to Iran. On July 26, the European Union followed suit. New EU sanctions include a ban on the sale of equipment and services to Iran’s energy sector.

By Roberto Jorquera

On September 26 the people of Venezuela will again head to the polls, to vote for the 165-member National Assembly.

Issue 24 - July 2010

By Hamish Chitts

Less than a week after the UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran on June 9, the Australia government is planning its own unilateral punitive measures.

By Eva Golinger

Caracas – A revealing report published in May 2010 by the FRIDE Institute, a Spanish think tank, prepared with funding from the World Movement for Democracy (a project of the US-based National Endowment for Democracy, NED), has disclosed that international agencies are funding the Venezuelan opposition with a whopping US$40-50 million annually.

Issue 22 - May 2010

By James Circello

The US military has retreated from a base in Afghanistan’s remote Korengal Valley after spending over four years trying to hold the area.

Reviewed by Allen Myers

The Good Soldiers
By David Finkel
Scribe Publications (2009),
287 pages (pb), $35.00

Issue 21 - April 2010

By Hamish Chitts

While the wars of occupation against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, like most wars, are being fought for big-business profits, they cannot be waged without the assistance of racism.

Issue 20 - March 2010

By Harry Huijsmans

Amsterdam – There is growing tension between Venezuela and the Netherlands over the US use of airfields on the Dutch Caribbean islands Curacao and Aruba for aggression against Venezuela. These small islands, some 80km off the Venezuelan coast, are part of the Caribbean segment of the former Dutch colonial empire and still part of the Netherlands.