The following letter from Australian anti-war and Latin
American solidarity activist Joan Coxsedge--who is also a former member of the
Victoria state parliament--originally appeared in an Australian-Cuban
solidarity group's newsletter.
“April 25, 2017
“Dear Comrades,
“Hope you’re all OK, but it’s hard to be OK when the entire
planet has gone bonkers and the most powerful man in the world is a dangerous
blowhard who likes dictators and autocrats and whose finger hovers over the Red
Button.
“Three presidential war criminals preceded Trump. Between
them, Clinton, George W and Obama bombed Yugoslavia (twice), invaded
Afghanistan and Iraq, attacked Pakistan and Yemen, destroyed Libya and sent in
mercenaries to bugger up Syria. Not enough space to detail all Washington’s
other coups and destabilizations but its lust for violence lies at its very
core and as a vassal nation we are part and parcel of it. Having exported its
manufacturing base and run down its industry (like us), the US has been left
with little else but brute force, not only bombing and destabilizing much of
the world, but messing up their own citizens, where police forces are out of
control and commit more ‘gun violence’ than anyone else.
“But Trump isn’t the anti-establishment outsider he
purported to be. His economic program looks like neo-liberalism on steroids
where US corporations continue to behave like Kings over feudal serfs. They buy
candidates, overwhelm governments with well-heeled lobbyists and spend a motser
on PR and much else. The war lords and his silly daughter Ivanka persuaded
Trump to unleash missiles on a Syrian airstrip and drop a $314 million massive
air blast bomb on a few dozen ‘terrorists’ in some Afghanistan caves without
the benefit of any valid intelligence. A display of machismo that got swift
establishment approval. ‘I think Donald Trump became president of the United
States last night’, gushed a CNN journo with raves about ‘the beauty of our
fearsome armaments’. The rest of the Global Empire joined in the cheer squad,
especially Australia
“In 2011 alone, the US spent $US845+ billion dollars on
‘defense and security’, with massive funds to covert Special Ops forces in more
than 100 countries, while ’we’ shelled out a $195 billion war arsenal,
including splurging more than $15 billion for American F-35 fighters exposed as
hi-tech turkeys. In July we’re taking part in one of the biggest US-led naval
exercises through China’s sea lanes, already encircled by 400 US military
bases. John Pilger warns that Australia is sleepwalking into confrontation with
China.
“No joy from Labor. Its defense spokesman Richard Marles
thrilled US admirals and generals at a recent conference in Hawaii by virtually
demanding that Australian commanders be given the authority to provoke
nuclear-armed China in the disputed South China Sea.
“Trump’s Secretary of State Tillerson has been sent to
Russia. Why? He’s spent the last few weeks peddling lies that Assad with the
help of Russia used sarin gas against civilians. The world’s media immediately
ran with the story without checking the facts or asking who put them out, when all
the information in the video came from two dodgy outfits - the London-based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the White Helmets, both openly
supporting al-Qaida - and was doctored and was a scam.
“The US had been fully briefed there was a target in Idlib
that the Russians believed was a weapons/explosives depot for Islamist rebels.
The Syrian Airforce hit the target with conventional weapons, expecting to see
a secondary explosion. Instead, smoke billowed out indicating it was used to
store organic phosphates and chlorine, not sarin, but was still deadly. A
strong wind blew the cloud to a nearby village.
“The video showed workers at the site 30 hours after the
attack wearing clothes bearing the logo ’Idlib Health Directorate’ putting dead
birds from a birdcage into plastic bags. The same workers were shown inside the
crater without any protection of any kind against either sarin vapors or sarin
aerosol. Had it been sarin, they would have died. One of the treating doctors
who appeared in the video had been arrested for kidnapping two western
journalists as a ‘committed jihadist’ and was struck off the Medical Council in
2016. The male victims were clean-shaven despite living in al-Qaida land.
“I could go on but the whole episode makes no sense.
Pro-government forces were winning on the ground using more effective
conventional tactics. They’re also under intense scrutiny, thus using chemical
weapons would be a strategic blunder serving no purpose whatsoever.
“But US war fever waits for nothing. Once the war frenzy was
unleashed, reasoning went out the window. That Syria used chemical weapons to
bomb civilians became absolute truth within less than 24 hours. As the old
saying goes: ‘A lie has travelled half-way around the world while truth is
still putting on its shoes’. “The truth is that the CIA has spent more than a
billion dollars arming anti-Assad ‘rebels’ and makes no bones that its main
target is the Syrian Government.
“The US is now turning its sights back to North Korea. A
strange regime but more understandable when you read about its recent past. I
thank Paul Atwood for the following material, but of course it’s only part of
the story.
“Why did this tiny nation of 24 million invest in nuclear?
Because of its turbulent history, with its four decade long occupation by
Japan, its forced division after WW2 and the later devastating war with the
United States from 1950-53 that ended in an uneasy armistice.
“Korea is an ancient nation with its own unique language and
traditions but its independence came to an end in 1910 after five years of war
and occupation by Japan. A nationalist resistance movement emerged in the form
of ‘people’s committees’ and it was from these deeply committed village and
city groups that guerrilla forces took on the Japanese during WW2.
“August 1945 saw the end of Japanese rule when Russia occupied
the northern peninsula. The Soviets agreed to the division between Soviet and
American forces because they were allies back then. Dean Rusk (later to become
Secretary of State) arbitrarily drew a line across the 38th parallel
ensuring that the capital city Seoul remained in the American zone.
“The Soviets could easily have occupied all of Korea but
chose not to do so. A pity, because the US immediately began favouring Koreans
who had actively collaborated with the Japanese while directing the government
to root out the people’s committees. The Soviets supported Kim Il-Sung who had
led the guerrilla army against the Japanese.
“In 1947, the United Nations authorised elections but as
the monitors were all US allies the Soviets and Communist Koreans declined to
take part. By then the Cold War was in full swing and the US only supported
candidates approved by Washington. Extremist anti-communist Syngman Rhee was
appointed head of the Korean government in 1945 before later winning the
country’s first presidential election. Many of his senior army officers had
served in the Japanese occupation. Both Russian and American troops withdrew
but left ‘advisers’ behind. Rhee’s forces attacked Kim’s supporters and in 1948
a guerrilla war broke out against the corrupt Rhee regime but was suppressed
with the help of American agents who later became part of the CIA.
“In 1950, Washington released its National Security Paper-68
that outlined the agenda for its anti-communist crusade, requiring a tripling
of its defense budget. And set the reactionary political tone that is still in
force. Given Washington’s post WW2 plans for global access to resources,
markets and cheap labour, any form of national liberation movements had to be
opposed.Truman authorized the UN to instigate a full-scale military
intervention, bypassing Congress. The war went badly at first, despite the US
having more troops, but this was swiftly reversed and North Koreans were forced
to retreat into the mountains.
“Right from the outset, China had made it clear that any
foreign troops approaching their border would ‘result in dire consequences’,
which was dismissed outright by General MacArthur. MacArthur then ordered
airstrikes under the command of the notorious General Curtis Lemay that laid waste
to thousands of square miles of North Korea, worse than anything seen in WW2,
short of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ‘We burned down every town and village’, said
Lemay. And he wasn’t exaggerating.
“In November 1950, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops
crossed the border and overwhelmed US forces. There was panic in Washington
with A-bombs on its agenda. MacArthur also wanted to use chemical weapons,
including gas and radioactive cobalt.
“By June 1951, UN troops were forced back across the 38th
parallel and the fighting became a war of attrition like the trench warfare in
WW1. The US was accused of dropping bombs laden with cholera, anthrax, plague
and encephalitis, all of which turned up among the north’s population. Some
American POWs admitted to such war crimes but were never allowed to talk to the
media. Napalm was also used extensively and completely destroyed Pyongyang. At
that time, the US was engaged in top secret germ warfare research using
captured Nazi and Japanese warfare experts. The US was also experimenting with
sarin gas despite it being banned by the Geneva Convention. Interesting, in
view of the current situation in Syria.
“In the spring of 1953, US warplanes hit five of North
Korea’s largest dams inundating and destroying Pyongyang’s rice harvest. They
were followed by flash floods that destroyed the soil and killed untold numbers
of farmers.
“At Nuremberg after WW2, Nazi officers who carried out
similar attacks on Holland’s dykes that created a massive famine were tried and
some were executed. It’s had to imagine, even after all this time, that after
such intense suffering and bloodshed North Korea would ever agree to submit to
any ultimatum by the US of A.
.
“Last Tuesday we commemorated Anzac Day when we heard a
great deal about fighting for freedom and democracy to justify the obscene
death toll in that terrible war and seem to have learned nothing. Still far too
much jingoism. Less than a week later many of us celebrated May Day to honour
the struggles and victories of working class people.
“Australia led the world when on April 21, 1856 stonemasons
at Melbourne University downed tools and marched to the Victorian Parliament
and inaugurated a movement which won the Eight Hour Day for building workers in
Victoria. The victory became an international landmark in the history of the
labour movement throughout the world. But oh to be in Cuba for May Day, a
fabulous celebration when millions march waving their red flags and singing and
dancing. Viva!
“Joan Coxsedge”
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