Category Archives: International

The Judgement of History.

Posted on January 18, 2012 by | Leave a comment

As one year changes to another, we reflect on what has passed, the highs and lows, and on what might be to come, the hopes and fears. What will history make of 2011, what will it know about 2012, and what will be its judgement? Which events will the historians of the future pick out as important, which will they consign to the footnotes, which events deemed not worthy of comment? This last category will include nearly the entire output of the popular media, just about everything that has occupied the pubic mind in 2011 and again in 2012. The footnotes will pick up most of the rest. The wheeler-dealing over the global economy; the posturing politicians who thought that they were cementing their place in history; the antics of media personalities. All of this will be seen as transient when people of the mid twenty-first century try to understand the origins of the situation that they will find them selves in and try to understand why nothing effective was done to prevent it. What, they will wonder, were the people of our time doing?

The one event that will interest them from 2011 hardly made the press let alone the headlines: the Durban Conference of the Parties number 17. They will then turn straight to number 18 in Qatar, having read with incredulity about COP16 in Copenhagen. How could the world leaders so callously ignore the clear evidence of science and willingly accept a temperature rise of 3°C, in the full knowledge that this would surely trigger a further rise to 4°C with a strong possibility of a resetting of the global thermostat at 6°C above the long term Holocene average. The people of 2050 will be living with the reality that CO2 levels will not have been stabilised at 550ppm and they will know then that that level was far too high, as a majority of scientists in 2011 warned.

What will not be hitting the headlines in 2012 is the end of the first accounting period of the Kyoto protocol, which started in 2005. This period should have seen the developed nations cutting their emissions by 5% of 1990 levels. It should have seen emissions beginning to stabilise and a new accounting period launched in 2013 to see emissions brought to a level consistent with no more than a 2°C rise in average global temperatures.

What has in fact happened is that global emissions have grown by 49% since 1990. Last year, despite the global recession and 20 years of so called ‘climate negotiations’, they grew by 5.9%. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are now higher than they have been for 800,000 years and the climate is responding.

Even if all the pledges that have been made at the plethora of international conferences were kept, the journal ‘Nature Climate Change’ found that emissions would continue to rise at about 3% per year. These ‘pledges’ – including America’s ‘pledge of a 2-3% cut’ – are totally inadequate, and our leaders know it. Ahead of the Durban talks, the International Energy Agency, by no means a green organization, said this: ‘The world has only five years to seriously start replacing fossil fuels by low carbon energy and energy efficiency. Failure to make the required investment by 2017 would ‘lock in’ high future emissions to such an extent that the 2°C goal would become unattainable

Those politicians and lobbyists who set out to frustrate negotiations and block the required action, have closed the door on stabilisation at or below 2°C. They have also closed the door on the second accounting period from 2013, the corporate capitalists did not want it and they rule the planet. Even though they didn’t actually manage to kill off the Kyoto treaty in Durban, which is what they wanted, it is as good as dead and there will be no binding agreements until at least 2020. Nothing will happen by 2017, 2°C is unattainable. Our leaders have failed us, they have rolled over in front of the corporate capitalists and their lobbyists, preferring self interest instead of the welfare of humanity. They may be feeling pleased with them selves, living their lives of sumptuous luxury, but history will not be kind to them.

And our response, the response of the people whose lives will be most affected by the failure to curb carbon emissions? That is something that those who read history in 2050 will also be interested to understand.

Consider our own judgement of people who lived amid the gathering clouds of crisis, in 1930’s Europe for example. Why, we might wonder, did most people of the time do nothing? Why did they turn away as neighbours were dragged from their homes, why didn’t they ask about those who disappeared? How could they voice agreement with the lies and deceit of their governments, or merely sit silent, witnessing the manifest wrongs, but doing nothing. What, we might ask, would we do among the gathering clouds of crisis? What are we doing amid the lies and deceit of the climate denialists who control most of popular media? What are we doing when given the clear information that contemporary political policy is flawed and risks serious conflict in the future. What happens when we are given the choice at elections, the choice of business as usual or the choice of a clear programme that would head off the danger? What happened in 2010 in the UK, in 2011 in Spain, Italy and Greece? The electorate turned to the right and ignored the warnings, voted to hold on desperately to their own comforts and conveniences, choosing to ignore or deny the crisis that the next generation will have to face.

The ordinary people of Europe in the mid 1930’s possibly thought that they were acting in the best interests of their children, how could they have thought otherwise? But through their inaction and denial, they condemned their children to the bloodiest war ever fought over the face of the Earth. People today make similar claims, we must protect jobs, we must protect the economy, cutting emissions is just too costly, holds too many risks with jobs to be able to address at this time. So they condemn their children to face the frightening possibility of escalating temperatures, to the spread of uninhabitable regions, and to the unknown experience of ecological collapse.

This is one version of future history – it is the outcome of ‘business as usual’. But there is another version of history, a version that must be written by the actions of ordinary people. We must not sit passively by and let this global catastrophe unfold, we have to challenge the deceit of the denialists and take action to counter the ineptitude of our leaders. The sheer courage of ordinary people across the Middle East gives us an inspirational lead. Throughout history small groups have similarly acted with courage to confront the wrongs of entrenched and powerful interests. From Tolpuddle and Peterloo to Occupy Wall Street, those self-serving interests have been, and will be forced to concede ground to the demands of ordinary people. But they will give nothing willingly.

Time is running out, the storm clouds are gathering. Our false political leaders and their commercial puppet masters have made it abundantly clear over the last 20 years that they are not going to do anything other than continue to con us into believing that they are acting in our best interests. It is up to us now to fight the battle to prevent dangerous climate change, to close the ever widening gap between the super rich and those in poverty, and to bring about the necessary political and economic change.

Green minded and fair minded people know that there is a better way forward, together, but only together, we can, we must, take that path. Our actions can and must determine history.

[Mike Shipley January 2012]

 

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Time to take the Tesco out of Food Policy

Posted on February 20, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Green Party food policy supports the production of healthy and humanely produced food, giving priority to local production for local needs, integrated with habitat conservation.  Greens also call for a fair price for family farm businesses and greater support for the provision of allotments and local markets.  A Ministry of Food should oversee policy delivery.  To stimulate greater home production, Government must make agricultural land available for sustainable production.  Where possible, this land should be held in Trust for the community, preventing it falling into the hands of the big, intensive landowners.  Government can lead the way by identifying underutilised public land, including that held by the Ministry of Defence – food security is an integral part of National security.  It should also require that the Royal Estate follow its lead.

Local Authorities need powers to take over the management of under-utilised land, similar to the powers they have over vacant private housing, making this land available for allotments or smallholdings.  They have to be empowered to rebuild the local market infrastructure that the supermarkets have destroyed.  Schools and colleges should work to develop knowledge, interest, and skills in growing and preparing food, so encouraging young people to see agriculture as a worthy career.

When Peter Kendall, President of the National Farmers Union addressed his Union’s conference this February, he roundly criticised government’s failure to adopt a serious food policy.  He said their approach was ‘leave it to Tesco’ – to leave it to the markets and rely on food imports to make up the growing food deficit.  Greens support his warning that this is ill advised in a world where a combination of both rising population and prosperity and the increasing frequency of so-called ‘natural’ disasters, is putting pressure on food supply.  He might have added that the reliance of western style agriculture on oil was adding a further twist to the rising spiral of food prices.

Historically the UK government has run a cheap food policy the purpose of which has been to underpin the low wage strategy that the captains of industry have wanted to pursue in order to minimise their costs and maximise their profits and dividends.  In the days of Empire this involved importing cheap food notably wheat from North America and sugar from the Caribbean to provide adequate calories for the workforce.  Now, this policy of relying on imports and letting the supermarkets use their muscle to force down prices, is failing.

Governments the world over have learned that if the workers get hungry they get upset and may riot.  Inadequate food supply has been an underlying cause of the revolutions taking place across the Middle East.  The World Bank acknowledges this and says that global food prices are at a dangerous level.  In response, the G20 will meet to discuss the economic and political impact of food and commodity prices.  French President Sarkozy, currently chair of G20, has blamed commodity speculators, and indeed, it is shocking that human beings will manipulate food prices for personal gain, consigning hundreds of thousands to hunger and misery.  But the problem lies deeper than this naked greed.

The problem lies in the ‘commodification’ of the earth’s resources – turning everything into something for sale and then leaving supply to the market.  Markets will always sacrifice long-term benefit for short-term gain; their interest is in profit not people.  Governments have a duty to look after the long-term interests of the people, and they are failing to do this.  They are in the position to develop policies that will deliver an adequate and balanced diet to their citizens.  However, these policies will require a fundamental shift in methods of food production and distribution; it will require standing up to the powerful interests that are manipulating food and agriculture policy.  It will require curtailing the dependence of food supply on oil.

There is no real food policy in the UK.  The last Government began a tentative process to look at the issue spurred on by the rise in oil prices and the global food riots of 2008.  Professor Tim Lang, a leading thinker on food policy and then advisor to the Cabinet office, exposed some revealing thinking underpinning entrenched government attitude to food supply.  Defra was of the opinion that self-sufficiency was neither possible nor a desirable goal for a trading nation.  They also took the view that the UK could and should buy on open markets.  National food security was relevant for developing countries they conceded, but not for the rich countries of Western Europe.  The Labour Government did not complete its policy review and we can presume that under the present administration Defra has returned to this default position.  If it does recognise a problem, it will doubtless listen to industry lobbyists and see the solution in more intensification, mega-dairies, and GM technology.  More reliance on increasingly scarce oil in other words.

Since Defra questions self-sufficiency, it is fair to ask if it is possible. This question was asked in 1975 by Kenneth Mellanby, founder Director of Monk’s Wood Ecology Research station, which of course has now been closed.  His answer, given in a book ‘Can Britain Feed Itself’ was a clear ‘Yes!’  More recently, Simon Fairlie, editor of ‘The Land’ revisited Mellanby’s work in the light of today’s population and land-use.  This time he gave a qualified ‘yes’.  We could do it, but meat consumption would have to decline by about one half.

A stunning demonstration of what happens if you take oil out of food production is to be seen in the film “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil” about Cuba after it lost Russian oil and still not able to afford other sources.  In its 2006 Living Planet Report, the WWF named Cuba as the only sustainable country in the world.  This was largely due to its system of organic food production, made necessary by its lack of oil.  Cubans enjoy a high standard of health with a life expectancy of 78, equivalent to any developed country.

Pioneers in the UK are showing the way.  Around the country, Transition Communities are looking seriously at local food security, developing the important concept of ‘food catchment area’.  With rising prices set to continue, their work is less academic and increasingly urgent, made even more so by the inability of Government to address the matter.  In Manchester, Unicorn Grocery specialises in ethically grown and wholesome fruit and veg.  The cooperative business has bought 21 acres of prime growing land at Glazebury, Warrington.  Its intention is to lease out plots to organic growers and provide the outlet market for the produce, bringing healthy, locally grown food to urban south Manchester.  It is initiatives like this that government needs to foster, not GM and mega-dairies.

[Mike Shipley February 2011]

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Drought hits the Amazon – again.

Posted on February 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment

In 2005, the Amazon basin experienced what at the time was called a ‘once in 100 year’ drought.  Changes in normal rainfall patterns were at the time attributed to unusually warm seas in the South Atlantic.  As a result of the drought, large areas of rainforest began to die back and as they did so, began to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  The Amazon basin, one of the worlds great carbon sinks, became a carbon emitter.  In all it was calculated that five billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were released.

In 2010, it all happened again.  Two ‘once in 100-year’ events within 5 years prove nothing, yet it is cause for concern.  The 2010 event was more intense than the 2005 drought with rivers dropping to record low levels disrupting the life and economy of Amazonia.  Preliminary calculations indicate that the resultant dieback will release even more carbon dioxide than the 2005 drought – an amount equivalent to the annual release by the USA.  Some tree deaths will be a long-term result of the 2005 drought that left many weakened and unable to tolerate further drying.  By the same argument, the final impact of the 2010 drought will not be felt for several years, the climate over the next decade will determine the fate of trees weakened but not killed last year.

A joint team from Brazil’s Amazon Environmental Research Institute and the University of Leeds, which has just produced a report on the drought, is carrying out research into the impact of these droughts.  Dr Simon Lewis, from the University of Leeds, who co-authored the report with Dr Paulo Brando of AERI, said, “Having two events of this magnitude in such close succession is extremely unusual, but is unfortunately consistent with those climate models that project a grim future for Amazonia.”

The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s great carbon sinks covering an area approximately 25 times the size of the UK.  Scientists at Leeds have previously shown that in a normal year the forests absorb approximately 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2.  However, for 2010 – 11, they predict that Amazon forests will switch from a carbon sink to a net emitter, releasing more than 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide over the coming years.  In addition to this figure, there will be the release from the continuing logging operations and forest fires that may well be more frequent following the drought.  Suddenly the world has been joined by another USA.

Over the last three years the Southern hemispheres has seen a succession of extreme events.  The Brazilian droughts, the fires in Victoria, record floods in Queensland and the biggest tropical cyclone ever recorded in Australia.  The monsoons that caused the flooding in Pakistan were under the influence of the southern oceans.  None of this should surprise us.  The southern hemisphere is the blue hemisphere, dominated by its oceans and these extreme events are attributed to ‘abnormal’ warming of the oceans.  Climate is intimately tied to oceanic conditions; oceans are the heat store, exchanging energy with the atmosphere, so driving weather patterns.  In a warming world, it is the southern hemisphere that will experiences climatic changes first.  However, the world has one integrated climatic system – where the south leads, the north will follow.

[Mike Shipley.]

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The Equality Trust

Posted on October 9, 2010 by | Leave a comment

The Equality Trust was established by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of the book ‘The Spirit Level’ which presents their research into the influence of inequality in developed countries.

The Trust aims to disseminate this information through a programme of public and political education designed to achieve:

  • a widespread understanding of the harm caused by income inequality
  • public support for policy measures to reduce income inequality
  • the political commitment to implementing such policy measures

The Trust is non-partisan and calls on all political parties to prioritise this issue.

Why More Equality?

The authors thirty years research shows that in rich countries, a smaller gap between rich and poor means a happier, healthier, and more successful population. They produced an index of health and social problems, amalgamating comparable data collected by agencies within 21 developed countries in Europe, the USA and Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The index combined scores for 10 factors:

Life Expectancy                  Maths and literacy

Infant mortality                 Homicides

Obesity                             Imprisonment

Mental illness & Addiction   Trust

Teenage pregnancy            Social mobility

More equal countries performed well for each of these indicators. With the combined results plotted against income equality, countries with higher levels of equality performed better than countries with lower levels of equality. The most equal countries were Japan in first place followed by the Scandinavian countries, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.    The countries with the highest scores for the above factors were Japan, again in first place, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands [9th for equality] and Switzerland [13th for equality] Finland and Denmark had slipped to 6th and 9th place respectively.

At the other end of the table, the least equal country was the USA followed by Portugal, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. For the combined index, the USA was again on the bottom followed by Portugal, the UK, Greece, and New Zealand. Considering each of these 10 factors separately and plotting each against equality, the USA, the most powerful and therefore presumed by some to be the most successful country in the world, was consistently on the bottom, with Japan at the top. The UK closely followed the USA.

The Authors have shown that more economic growth in developed countries will NOT lead to a happier, healthier, or more successful population. In fact, there is no relation between income per head and social well-being across rich countries. People doing similar jobs in Japan and Scandinavia, generally earn less that they would in the USA, but they have a higher sense of well-being.

With greater equality in the UK, the authors conclude that we would be better off as a population. For example, the evidence suggests that if we halved inequality here:

- Murder rates would halve
- Mental illness would reduce by two thirds
- Obesity would halve
- Imprisonment would reduce by 80%
- Teen births would reduce by 80%
- Levels of trust would increase by 85%

Not just poor people do better. The evidence suggests people all the way up would benefit, although it’s true that the poorest would gain the most.

These findings hold true, whether you look across developed nations, or across the 50 states of the USA.

For more information, resources and up to date news, visit the Trust website:

http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/

Or, read ‘The Spirit Level’ by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, published by Penguin Books.

It should be noted the policies of the ConDem coalition would lead to an increase in inequality, with the cuts hitting the least well of and the big business sector resuming bonus business as usual. Performance of the UK in the above 10 indicators, can be expected to decline. 

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The Price of Oil Addiction

Posted on July 12, 2010 by | Leave a comment


This is the price we are paying for our near total dependence on oil.

Global consumption is approaching 86 million barrels per day, 2% up on 2009. Reserves are dwindling; new finds are becoming rare.  This is why the “Deepwater Horizon” exploration rig was drilling in mile deep water, stretching its technology to breaking point.

The ‘easy’ oil has gone.  Exploration and development has to turn to difficult and hazardous fields, some in politically unstable areas, others in ecologically sensitive areas.  Areas like the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, or off the coast of Brazil in mile and a half deep water.  Off Newfoundland amid icebergs and storms.  In the Niger Delta where civil war threatens.  In Iraq.  All of this is a symptom of ‘peak oil’.

And what is the response of our politicians and economists?  Consume, increase demand, burn more in the relentless pursuit of profit and power.

And the price we pay for this madness?  More ecological and human disasters.  More wars over resources.  More release of Carbon dioxide driving climate change.  Higher global temperatures.  All bad news for the future, just so we can cling on to our convenient lifestyle for a few years longer, just so today’s politicians can cling to power.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

The Green Party has proposed a series of policies that can deliver a good life-style for all, that will not cost the Earth.

•    Invest in demand reduction, insulation and energy efficiency.
•    Invest in renewable energy.
•    Invest in reuse and recycling.

All of this will create sustainable jobs, will help build a sustainable economy that is not held to ransom by the oil-men.

Help end our addiction nightmare, help build a sustainable society.

Support the Greens!

Please download and distribute our leaflet

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The Crisis In Afghanistan

Posted on July 3, 2010 by | Leave a comment

This week we registered a new stage of crisis for the NATO occupation of Afghanistan.

The dismissal of General McChrystal by President Obama is not a case of personal animosity, or of military arrogance towards civilians, although these factors undoubtedly are present. At the heart of the incident is a conflict of policy.

Last year, at the time of Obama’s review of US strategy in Afghanistan, McChrystal suggested that there should be an immediate deployment of 40,000 of troops, and a further 40,000 after that. The assumption was that an extended occupation was necessary. This was in line with the views of Senator General John McCain, who had spoken of an occupation that could last a 100 years.

In response, Obama agreed a surge of 30,000 additional troops. But in a concession to domestic concerns, Obama stated that by July 2011 a process of withdrawal would commence.

In practice then, McChrystal has been carrying out a policy that he did not agree with. But the implementation of the Obama policy was by a plan jointly drawn up by McChrystal, and his replacement, General Petraeus.

In his West Point speech in December 2009, Obama outlined the 3 themes which made up the new US strategy: “…..a military effort to create the conditions for a transition; a civilian surge that re-enforces positive action; and an effective partnership with Pakistan”.

Six months on, all three elements seem to be failing. The military effort involved a combination of counter insurgency with the “Afghanisation” of security by a massive build up of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP).

The counter insurgency operation had its first big test in Operation Moshtarak where the aim was to inflict a defeat on the Taliban in the area around Marjah. Despite the deployment of 15,000 NATO troops and five brigades of Afghan forces, no effective engagement was achieved with the Taliban.

A spokesman for the Taliban said: “We have withdrawn tactically from some areas. We never flee”. TheTaliban claimed minimum causalities, despite the strength of the deployment against them.

Counter insurgency theory suggests that one solider is necessary for every 50 civilans in an area of operation. The area of operations in Marjah had a population of around 30,000. This operation involved a ratio of one solider for every two civillans, and was still ineffective.

McChrystal had notoriously claimed that after a military victory in Marjah, he had a replacement local government “in the box” which could be established to counter a return of the Taliban.

Three months after victory has been declared, the Taliban remains active in the area; McChrystal has characterised Marjah as “a bleeding ulcer”; and a stable local government remains “in the box”.

Nor has the process of the “Afghanisation” of security registered any success. The ANP is known to be corrupt and demoralised. McChrystal stated that only 25% had received any basic training.

However, the army was supposedly a more effective organisation. Yet on June 14th 2010, a Time Magazine report found:

“9 out of 10 Afghan enlisted recruits can’t read a rifle instruction manual or drive a car, according to NATO trainers. The officers corps is fractured by rivalries; Soviet-era veterans vs. the former mujahedin rebels who fought them in the 1980s, Tajiks vs. Uzbeks, Hazaras and Pashtuns. Commanders routinely steal their enlisted men’s salaries. Soldiers shake down civilians at road checkpoints and sell off their own American-supplied boots, blankets and guns at the bazaar – sometimes to the Taliban. Afghans, not surprisingly, run when they see the army coming.

Recruits tend to go AWOL after their first leave, while one-quarter of those who stay in service are blitzed on hashish or heroin according to an internal survey carried out by the Afghan National Army(ANA). One NATO major from Latvia stationed in the north, complained to a Time video team that when a battalion’s combat tour was extended, three Afghan officers shot themselves in the foot to get medevacked out.”

At the time when no military progress is being made, there can be no reinforcement via a “civilian surge”. There have been no increase in NGO or NATO reconstruction on the ground. One anecdote best illustrates this. All the tabloid and broad sheet newspapers in Britain, extensively covered the operation by the British Army to deliver a turbine to the Kajaki dam which would mean, we were told, the people of Kandahar receiving hydro electric power.

In its June 26th issue, months after the operation, the Economist reports: “Alas the turbine dispatched for this purpose, in an operation involving 5,000 British troops, still lays in the Kajaki dirt, the Taliban having made it impossible to truck in cement to install it”.

And the third theme, the greater involvement of the Pakistan Government, and military, has not led to the border becoming more secure. Despite intense pressure from the US, the Pakistan military has not launched a major offensive in North Waziristan.

But there are many signs of Pakistan assuming a greater influence, independently of the US Government. A spokesman for the Pakistani Army, Major General Athar Abbas said “The American time table for getting out makes it easier for Pakistan to play a more visible role”.

Indeed this assertiveness runs to the Pakistan Army outlining a policy which is decidedly out of line with US policy. A policy of negotiating peace with the insurgents is being actively pursued by the Pakistan Army.

In three trips to Kabul, Afghan officials have confirmed, that Pakistan Army General Kayani and General Pasha had offered to broker a peace deal involving the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani fighting force. This is not what Obama had anticipated.

Can we expect a difference approach from Petraeus? Although he drew up the current plan with McChrystal, Petraeus is a position to move away from Obama’s compromise.

Of immediate concern must be that Petraeus may set aside McChrystal’s policy of “courageous restraint”. This placed limits upon NATO utilising night raids, bombing and pursuit into populated areas and villages.

Although the number of civilian causalities reached its highest point in 2009, this is down to the general increase in fighting. If Petraeus sets the policy aside, the first change that will be registered will be a further escalation in civilian causalities.

Petraeus has not ruled out an increase in troop numbers. McCain recently suggested a further 10,000 US troops may be necessary. All surge troops will be in Afghanistan by summer, amounting to 105,000 US troops and 48,000 from NATO allies. So additional troops will be on top of these numbers.

Petraeus is probably of the view that an extended occupation is necessary. When asked this week whether he supported the July 2011 drawdown date, he offered a “qualified yes”. Obviously he could not blatantly contradict Government policy, but the qualification did so implicitly.

Obama himself is moving away from his previous policy. On June 24th, when questioned about the deadline, he said: “we didn’t say we would be switching off the lights. We said we would begin a transition phrase that would allow the Afghan Government to take more and more responsibility”.

This wriggle away from the commitment runs counter to government policy. Vice President Jo Biden gave a recent interview where he said: “….in July of 2011 you are going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it”.

Obama and Petraeus had indicated that there would be a “strategic assessment” of policy in December 2010. In the meantime the crisis deepens. June 2010 was the deadliest month since the war began for NATO troops, 79 killed so far, in comparison to the previous record of 77 in August 2009.

There have also been serious set backs for Obama with the Afghan political process. The clearest expression of this is the weakened connection to the Afghan Government.

In April, within the space of a week, President Karzai met twice with President Ahmadinejad – of Iran – and once with representatives of the Chinese Government. This prompted an unscheduled flight by Obama to Kabul to meet Karzai. Iran and China are the two border states to Afghanistan that the US administration believes have no role in its future.

Karzai has also publicly claimed that the US tried to fix the presidential elections in 2009; claimed that the US fired rockets at his Peace Conference; said he might end up joining the Taliban; sacked the two most pro-US Ministers, intelligence Chief Amrullah Saleh and Interior Minister Hanif Atmar. These Ministers have been vocal in their public opposition to the Iranian and Pakistani Governments influence.

Karzai also lobbied Obama to retain McChrystal, presumably because he feared the loss of the “courageous restraint” policy.

In this growing assertiveness of Karzai and the Pakistan Government, we can see, albeit in a highly mediated manner, the strengthening of anti-imperialist forces in the region.

But if we are entering a new stage of crisis, there is no automatic resolution. The current issue of the Economist is titled “Losing Afghanistan”, this does not mean Afghanistan is yet lost for the occupiers. But it does mean that the anti-war movement must considerably step up its activity in Britain and the US.

There is the sense of growing disengagement internationally. The Netherlands Government are withdrawing their troops in August. The Canadian Government is committed to withdrawing combat troops by next summer. On Thursday 24th June, the acting President, and likely victor in Poland’s Presidential Election, Bronislaw Komorowski, asked the Polish Government to prepare for a Polish withdrawal by 2012. In all cases the US administration is seeking a reversal of policy.

In Britain, the election of the Coalition Government has brought out more in the open some tension about the future of the intervention.

From the point of view of the Coalition, there is a hole of £36 billion in the defence budget in the next decade. This in itself is a prompt for examining an intervention in Afghanistan which is running at around £5 billion a year.

But the Conservatives have always had a more pragmatic and business like attitude to colonial wars. This comes from the hundreds of years of accumulated experience of colonialism which exists in the Tory party. Labour politicians are much more concerned about ridiculous issues like being seen as unpatriotic, or weak on defence.

Consequently, the last couple of months have seen the first signs of real disquiet in Government. At the end of May, The Independent on Sunday quoted “senior military sources” as saying that talks were underway with US Commanders on scaling down the British commitment to war.

On the 9th May, the Times published the conclusions of an investigation with senior military figures, politicians and civil servants on the move of British troops to the south of Afghanistan in 2006.

The report said that the MOD and Whitehall departments had grossly under-estimated the threat from the Taliban. Warnings of inadequate troop numbers had also been ignored.

The original move was to send 3,300 troops to Helmand for 3 years and at a cost of a billion pounds. John Reid famously said, from military opinion given, that they would be able to leave: “without a shot being fired”. Four years later there are 8,000 British troops in place, along side 20,000 US Marines, with hundreds of causalities.

This sense of disquiet exists amongst Tory MP’s. Last year, Adam Holloway MP, in a report, wrote of an “ill conceived mission” and that “attempts to impose a central Government…..are over ambitious and likely to fail”.

Recently, Patrick Mercer MP said that it is “unsustainable for this number of troops to be in Afghanistan and Pakistan for an indefinite period”. This is true of course, but also is an admission of British Special Forces operating inside Pakistan.

Julian Lewis MP a former Shadow Defence Secretary, has spoken of “…..pointless patrols creating target practice for the Taliban”.

It is clear this disquiet is having an impact upon the Coalition Government too. In early June, Cameron held a strategy review. He has since ruled out increasing the number of British troops – a statement of inflexibility which reeks of concern about the future.

Cameron has also indicated that withdrawal from next year may be possible, in line with Obama’s initial policy. Cameron stated that Britain “cannot be there in 5 years times”, further reinforcing the impression of disquiet about the future.

The most obvious expression of policy tension in the Government came on a trip to Kabul by Ministers. Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary said “we are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education of a broken 13th century country. We are there to see our global interests are not threatened”.

This clearly came as news to Andrew Mitchell, the Development Secretary, who said at the same time “….providing basic education and health care facilities was crucial”.

The lack of coherence in the coalition Government is likely to become more pronounced as the crisis of the occupation becomes more apparent.

The Parliamentary Labour Party continues to lag behind the deepening crisis. Some on the right of the party, such as Eric Joyce MP and Denis MacShane MP, have realised how hopeless the intervention now is. But, of the potential leaders of the party, it is only Diane Abbott who has clearly called for withdrawal.

Yet the anti-war movement must be aware of how vital it is to increase its activity. Parliament is full of new MPs, many of whom can be placed under real pressure by organised lobbying.

In the coming weeks, facing a potential offensive in Kandahar, and perhaps a more aggressive pursuit of military goals, the anti-war movement is necessary now more than ever.

Support the Green Party and the Stop The War coalition.

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