COMMENT BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
Terribly lucid, as usual. But I think Caleb is wrong in saying the US post office is not an example of socialism (as are all public libraries of one kind or another).  In fact, we could also argue that emergency municipal ambulances and the fire department in most localities are also examples of the idea of socialism far more than capitalism. They are islands of socialism in the ocean of capitalism, constantly buffeting them. Does anyone get a bill from the fire deparment after they put out a fire in their homes? True, the boundaries are sometimes fluid, so I'll just leave it at that. —PG

By Treka Zn (Syrian patriot)

Introduction

Despite having the bigest military budget in the world, five times larger than the next six countries, the largest number of military bases—over 800— in the world and the most expensive military industrial complex, the US has failed to win a single war in the 21st century. In this paper we will enumerate the wars and proceed to analyze why, despite the powerful material basis for wars, it has led to failures.

The Lost Wars
The US has been engaged in multiple wars and coups since the beginning of the 21st century. These include Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, Venezuela and the Ukraine. Besides Washington’s secret intelligence agencies have financed five surrogate terrorist groups in Pakistan, China, Russia, Serbia and Nicaragua. The US has invaded countries, declared victories and subsequently faced resistance and prolonged warfare which required a large US military presence to merely protect garrison outposts.

The US has suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties—dead, maimed and deranged soldiers. The more the Pentagon spends, the greater the losses and subsequent retreats. The more numerous the vassal regimes, the greater the corruption and incompetence flourishes. Every regime subject to US tutelage has failed to accomplish the objectives designed by its US military advisers. The more spent on recruiting mercenary armies the greater the rate of defection and the transfer of arms to US adversaries.

Success in Starting Wars and Failures in Finishing Them
The US invaded Afghanistan, captured the capital (Kabul) defeated the standing army …and then spent the next two decades engaged in losing irregular warfare. The initial victories laid the groundwork for future defeats. Bombings, drove millions of peasants and farmers ,shopkeepers and artisans into the local militia. The invaders were defeated by the forces of nationalism and religion linked to families and communities. The indigenous insurgents overcame arms and dollars in many of the villages, towns and provinces. Similar outcomes were repeated in Iraq and Libya. The US invaded, defeated the standing armies, occupied the capital and imposed its clients--- which set the terrain for long-term, large-scale warfare by local insurgent armies.

The more frequent the western bombings, the greater the opposition forcing the retreat of the proxy army. Somalia has been bombed frequently. Special Forces have recruited, trained, and armed the local puppet soldiers, sustained by mercenary African armies but they have remained holed up in the capital city, Mogadishu, surrounded and attacked by poorly armed but highly motivated and disciplined Islamic insurgents. Syria is targeted by a US financed and armed mercenary army. In the beginning they advanced, uprooted millions, destroyed cities and homes and seized territory. All of which impressed their US – EU warlords. Once the Syrian army united the populace, with their Russian, Lebanese (Hezbollah) and Iranian allies, Damascus routed the mercenaries. After the better part of a decade the separatist Kurds, alongside the Islamic terrorists and other western surrogates retreated, and made a last stand along the northern borders--the remaining bastions of Western surrogates.

The Ukraine coup of 2014 was financed and directed by the US and EU.  They seized the capital (Kiev) but failed to conquer the Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Corruption among the US ruling kleptocrats devastated the country – over three million fled abroad to Poland, Russia and elsewhere in search of a livelihood.. The war continues, the corrupt US clients are discredited and will suffer electoral defeat unless they rig the vote .

Surrogate uprisings in Venezuela and Nicaragua were bankrolled by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED). They ruined economies but lost the street wars.

Conclusion

Wars are not won by arms alone. In fact, heavy bombing and extended military occupations ensure prolonged popular resistence, ultimate retreats and defeats. The US major and minor wars of the 21st century have failed to incorporate targeted countries into the empire. Imperial occupations are not military victories. They merely change the nature of the war, the protagonists of resistance, the scope and depth of the national struggle. The US has been successful in defeating standing armies as was the case in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Ukraine. However, the conquest was limited in time and space. New armed resistance movements led by former officers, religious activists and grass roots activists took charge… The imperial wars slaughtered millions, savaged traditional family, workplace and neighborhood relations and set in motion a new constellation of anti-imperialist leaders and militia fighters. The imperial forces beheaded established leaders and decimated their followers. They raided and pillaged ancient treasures. The resistance followed by recruiting thousands of uprooted volunteers who served as human bombs, challenging missiles and drones.

The US imperial forces lack the ties to the occupied land and people. They are ‘aliens’ serving time; they seek to survive, secure promotions and exit with a bonus and an honorable discharge. In contrast, the resistance fighters are there for the duration. As they advance, they target and demolish the imperial surrogates and mercenaries. They expose the corrupt client rulers who deny the subject people the elementary conditions of existence – employment, potable water, electricity etc. The imperial vassals are not present at weddings, sacred holidays or funerals, unlike the resistance fighters. The presence of the latter signals a pledge of loyalty unto death. The resistance circulates freely in cities, towns and villages with the protection of the local people; and by night they rule enemy terrain, under cover of their own people, who share intelligence and logistics. Inspiration, solidarity and light arms are more than a match for the drones, missiles and helicopter gunships. Even the mercenary soldiers, trained by the Special Forces, defect from and betray their imperial masters.

Temporary imperial advances serve only to allow the resistance forces to regroup and counter-attack. They view surrender as a betrayal of their traditional way of life, submission to the boot of western occupation forces and their corrupt officials. Afghanistan is a prime example of an imperial ‘lost war’. After two decades of warfare and one trillion dollars in military spending, tens of thousands of casualties, the Taliban controls most of the countryside and towns; enters and takes over provincial capitals and bombs Kabul. They will take full control the day after the US departs.

The US military defeats are products of a fatal flaw: imperial planners cannot successfully replace indigenous people with colonial rulers and their local look-alikes. Wars are not won by high tech weapons directed by absentee officials divorced from the people: they do not share their sense of peace and justice. Exploited people informed by a spirit of communal resistance and self-sacrifice have demonstrated greater cohesion than rotating soldiers eager to return home and mercenary soldiers with dollar signs in their eyes. The lessons of lost wars have not been learned by those who preach the power of the military-industrial complex-- which makes, sells and profits from weapons but lack the mass of humanity with lesser arms but with great conviction who have demonstrated their capacity to defeat imperial armies. The Stars and Stripes fly in Washington but remain folded in Embassy offices in Kabul, Tripoli, Damascus and in other lost battlegrounds.

Latin America: Rightwing Interlude and the Death Rattle of Neoliberalism
By James Petras

The Macris with the Trumps, paying obeisance at the seat of the empire. It's all in vain. Serving Washington is a shameful and futile enterprise doomed to ultimate failure and rejection.

Introduction
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]usiness writers, neo-liberal economists and politicians in North America and the EU heralded Latin America’s embrace of a ‘new wave of free markets and free elections’. Beginning in 2015 they predicted a new era of growth, stability and good government free of corruption and run by technocratic policy-makers. By early 2018 the entire neo-liberal edifice was crumbling, the promises and predictions of a neoliberal success story were forgotten. The ‘naysayers’ were in ascendancy. This paper will discuss the recent rise of a so-called ‘neo-liberal wave’ or right turn and the regimes directing it. We will critically re-evaluate the initial claims – and their fragile foundation. We will outline the promise and program which were promoted by the neo-liberal elite. We will then evaluate the results which ensured and the ultimate debacle. We will conclude by examining why neo-liberalism has always been a crisis ridden project, a regime whose fundamentals are structurally unstable and based on capitalism's easy entry and fast departures.

The Neo-liberal ‘Wave’
By the beginning of 2015 and extending to 2018 a series of rightwing neo-liberal regimes came to power in some of the most important countries of Latin America. These included Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia. They joined a cluster of existing ‘free market’ regimes in Mexico, Peru, Honduras and Paraguay. Wall Street, the financial press and the White House hailed the regime changes as a ‘rightwing wave’, a return to ‘normalcy’ and a rejection of ‘populism’, corruption and economic mismanagement. Leading investment houses looked forward to technocratic economists’ intent on following the precepts of neo-liberalism. Bankers and investors looked forward to long-term stability, dynamic growth and lucrative opportunities.

The Neo-liberal Program
The formulae uniformly applied by the neo-liberal regimes included de-regulation of the economy – lowering tariffs, elimination of subsidies on energy, fuels and public utilities; the firing of thousands of public employees and the privatization of entire sectors of the mining, energy telecoms and infrastructure sectors. Debt moratoriums ended and bankers were rewarded with lucrative billion dollar payments for loans they had purchased, pennies on a dollar.

The neo-liberal rulers promised that foreign investors would flock through the ‘open doors’ with long-term large-scale investments. Lucrative capital gains, benefiting from tax exemptions, would encourage the return of overseas holdings of domestic speculators. Neo-liberal regimes claimed privatized firms could end corruption, increase employment and mass consumption. They argued that deficits and unemployment, would decline and the ‘neo-liberal wave’ would last a generation or two.

Neo-liberalism: Wave or Wash-out?
Within a year of coming to power, the neo-liberal regimes entered a terminal crisis. In the first place most regimes came to power through authoritarian paths. In Brazil, Michel Temer took-over the presidency via a congressional coup, based on President Dilma Rousseff’s supposed administrative mismanagement. In Honduras a US backed military coup ousted the progressive liberal government of President Jose Manuel Zelaya, as was the case in Paraguay with President Fernando Lugo. In Argentina, Mauricio Macri exploited the provincial patronage machine, capitalized by a banker-media-agro-mineral alliance, to take power based on a Mexican-style ‘electoral’ process. In Ecuador newly elected President Lenin Moreno followed a “Trojan Horse” ploy – pretended to follow in the footsteps of national populist President Rafael Correa, but once elected, embraced the Guayaquil oligarchs- Wall Street bankers.

Neo-liberalism’s democratic credentials are of dubious legitimacy. The socio-economic policies quickly undermined optimistic promises and led to social-economic disasters. The neo-liberal regime in Argentina multiplied unemployment and under-employment twice over while living standards declined precipitously. Tens of thousands of public employees were fired. Interest rates rose to world highs at 65% - effectively eliminating business loans and financing. Initially business enterprises were eager to back the neo-liberal regime; but faced with devaluation, debt and depression, investors fled to safer havens after pocketing windfall profits.

In Brazil trucker strikes paralyzed activity and forced the Temer regime to retract its petrol prices. Popular discord has blocked Temer’s regressive privatization and pension program. Michel Temer’s popularity fell to single digits. The orthodox economic presidential replacements to Temer lag the Workers’ Party popular leader Lula Da Silva by 30% .

The highly neoliberalized judiciary , faced with repudiation, has framed and barred and jailed Lula. In Colombia regime corruption led to a popular referendum, opposed by the far right. Social movements charge the new neo-liberal President Ivan Duque of ignoring and encouraging the assassination of over three hundred social activists over the past three years. In Honduras and Paraguay, economic stagnation and social regression has driven tens of thousands to flee abroad or engage in militant movements occupying fallow fields. In Ecuador the fake reform regime’s embrace of the business elite and IMF style ‘adjustments’ has led to widespread disillusionment. President Moreno’s austerity program has reduced GDP to 1% and has dismantled public programs, as he lays the groundwork for privatizing mines, telecoms and banks. As the neo-liberal regimes face the abyss, they increasingly rely on a militarized state.

In Brazil the military has taken over the favelas; in Argentina military operations have proliferated---- while formerly productive capital has fled, replaced by speculative swindlers.

Conclusion
Neo-liberal regimes take power with Wall Street cheers and collapse with barely a whimper. While financial journalists and private investment consultants express surprise and attribute the ensuring crises to regime ‘mistakes’ and ‘mismanagement’, the real reasons for the predictable failure of neo-liberal regimes is a result of fundamental flaws.

De-regulation undermines local industries which cannot compete with Asian, US and EU manufacturers. Increases in the costs of utilities bankrupt small and medium producers. Privatization deprives the state of revenues for public financing. Austerity programs lower deficits, undermining domestic consumption and eliminate fiscal financing. Capital flight and rising interest rates increases the cost of borrowing and devalues the currency. Devaluations and capital flight deepen the recession and increase inflation. Finance ministers raid reserves to avoid a financial crash. Austerity, stagnation, unemployment and social regression provoke labor interest and public-sector strikes. Consumer discontent, bankruptcies lead to deep decline of regime popularity. As the crisis unfolds, the regime reshuffles ministers, increases repression and seeks salvation with IMF financing. Financiers balk sending good money after bad. The neo-liberal regimes enter in a terminal crisis. While current neo-liberal regimes appear moribund, they still retain state power, a modicum of elite influence and a capacity to exploit internal divisions among their adversaries.

The anti-neoliberal opposition demonstrates its strength in challenging socioeconomic policies but have difficulty in formulating an alternative political economic strategy for state power.

Financial editors worry that pressure is building for a social explosion –a reply of Argentina 2001, when the President fled in a helicopter.

The Real News Network