When the visit of US President Barack Obama was announced last month, an official White House statement said he “is looking forward to commemorating the 70th anniversary of Australia-US relations”.

When running for the US presidency in 2008, Barack Obama promised “change you can believe in”. As president, he has failed to live up to the hopes and expectations of his supporters for progressive change.

“Don’t make the mistake, President Obama, of ordering an overt aggression against Venezuela utilising Colombia … We are ready for anything, and Venezuela will never, never be a Yankee colony again”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stated on November 8, in the wake of the Obama administration’s signing on October 30 of a 10-year accord with Colombia for a joint military build-up.

For the past few years, private military contractors have out numbered US troops in Afghanistan despite a doubling in the size of the US occupation under the Obama administration. There were more contractors than US troops in Iraq a year ago, but the number of contractors dropped slightly this year to 120,000 – equal to the number of US troops.

October 7 marks eight years since the US-led coalition of imperialist powers and their client states invaded Afghanistan.

“We do not want war, we hate it. But we must prepare for it”, explained Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez on August 16 in response to plans to increase numbers of US bases around his country, which has confirmed the continuation of US threats of aggression from the Bush to the Obama administrations.

The inauguration of re-elected Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa in the nation’s capital Quito on August 10 became a focal point for a discussion about the rising tensions in South America between the growing number of elected left-wing governments on the continent and moves by Washington to increase the number of its military bases in Colombia, which is ruled by the right-wing gov

There has been a renewed campaign of anti-Iran propaganda and threats of more severe economic sanctions by the US and its imperialist allies, including Australia, following the mass protests in Iran triggered by the June 12 presidential election and the charges by defeated candidates of electoral fraud.

Last month the Melbourne Age revealed that members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) had covered up the killing and wounding of civilians in Afghanistan by Australian Special Air Service (SAS) troops. In the same month, The Australian newspaper proudly reported the use of SAS patrols as death squads carrying out assassinations in Afghanistan.

Since late April, more than 15,000 Pakistani troops have engaged militarily with 3000-4000 Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s Swat valley in North-West Frontier Province. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million civilians, driving the total number of internal refugees from Swat to more than 2 million.

San Francisco – After releasing memos from lawyers for the Bush administration advocating torture of prisoners swept up in the US wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, US President Barack Obama has ruled out prosecuting the war criminals who ordered the use of torture.

US President Barack Obama faces growing pressure to end the US economic blockade of socialist Cuba, imposed in 1962. On April 13, prior to attending the Organization of American States (OAS) heads of government meeting in Trinidad, Obama eased restrictions on Cuban-Americans visiting and sending money to family members in Cuba.

The global crisis of capitalism is being used by the ALP as an excuse to water down workers’ rights and measures to tackle climate change as well as for a general “belt tightening” of public services. But the Rudd government is keeping its commitment to maintain the Howard government’s annual 3% real increase in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) budget.

By the end of March, 10 Australian soldiers had been killed in the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, including nine in the past 18 months. Last month alone, there were two Australian Defence Force deaths in separate incidents as the Rudd government endorsed Washington’s decision to escalate the occupation forces’ war in Afghanistan.

Testimony given by Israeli soldiers involved in Israel’s 22-day December-January assault on Gaza to a pre-military preparatory program at the Oranim Academic College in Israel on February 13, and which the March 18 Haaretz daily began printing daily excerpts of, revealed that they repeatedly committed crimes with impunity in Gaza.

Australian soldiers of the Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) were searching through homes in southern Uruzgan province on February 12, when, they claimed, they were fired on by Afghan resistance fighters. The troops returned fire, killing five children and wounding two children and two adults.

Despite campaigning for “change we can believe in”, Barack Obama has attacked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who leads Venezuela’s socialist revolution, as “a force that has interrupted progress in the region” during an interview on January 12 with the Spanish-language TV network Univision. This was not the first time Obama had denounced the Chavez government.

Barack Obama’s first military act as US president was to order two remote-controlled air strikes that killed 22 people, many civilians, in Waziristan, northern Pakistan. The Hellfire missile attacks on two villages were accompanied by presidential rhetoric about “smart power” and “tough love” that could easily have been spoken by his predecessor, George Bush.

Many who voted for the ALP on November 24, 2007, did so thinking that a Rudd Labor government would end Australia’s involvement in the US-led war in Iraq. One year on and the Australian military under PM Kevin Rudd is still an active cog in the US-led imperialism war machine in Iraq.

The election of Barack Obama to the US presidency has generated hope among many that not only will the US soon be out of Iraq, but there will also be a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, a closer look at Obama’s stated views on Israel and Palestine reveals that he is unlikely to depart significantly from the pro-Israel policies of George W. Bush.

Thirty years ago, at the end of December 1978, Vietnamese troops and rebel Cambodian forces crossed into Cambodia and in a few weeks overthrew a regime whose savagery rivalled that of Nazi Germany.

San Francisco – Many people have high hopes that Barack Obama will led the US in a new direction. What can we say now about his likely course? Obama’s mantra during the election campaign was “change”. Now he is emphasising “continuity” and a seamless transition from the Bush administration. The only change from the current regime is to go back to the Clinton years.

The war in Afghanistan is not a “good war” gone bad. It’s been an unjust, imperialist war of conquest and empire from its inception. About five hours after hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, US President George Bush’s defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld turned to an aide and told him to begin drawing up plans for war.

Every year since 1992 the overwhelming majority of UN member countries have voted for Cuba’s resolution demanding an end to the US economic blockade against the Caribbean socialist state. On October 29, the UN General Assembly voted for the 17th consecutive year in favour of Cuba’s motion.

On October 25, Major-General Tariq Khan, commander of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), announced that his officers had captured Loi Sam, a key Taliban stronghold in the Bajaur region, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.