Australian union rams through sell-out at Coles Smeaton Grange

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/01/cole-m01.html




Oscar Grenfell
14 hours ago







After isolating 350 workers at Coles’ Smeaton Grange warehouse throughout a company lockout that spanned more than three months, the United Workers Union (UWU) has forced through a sell-out enterprise agreement that gives the supermarket giant everything it demanded.

The betrayal of the workers has a significance that goes far beyond their facility in southwestern Sydney. The lockout, among the longest industrial disputes of the past two decades, contains critical lessons for the working class as a whole. Chief among them is that any fight in defence of jobs, conditions and basic rights confronts the unions as an enemy force that serves the interests of company managements and privileged officials, against the workers they falsely claim to represent.

For some 14 weeks, the workers held out against the dictates of one of the largest companies in Australia as it refused to provide them with a wage or allow them inside their workplace. This was a courageous stand on behalf of not only their own jobs and conditions, but those of other warehouse staff across the country, who are also in the firing line, and the working class as a whole. It reflected a growing militancy and opposition among wide layers of workers.

But this struggle was systematically undermined and betrayed by the UWU. From the outset of the dispute, the union accepted that Smeaton Grange would be closed and virtually all of the jobs there destroyed. Initially, the UWU claimed to be fighting for a “just transition” and “fair redundancies.” Over the course of the three months, even that posture was abandoned, as the union adopted the company’s demands in full and insisted that workers had no option but to accept them.

Depending on how many of the dubious “indicative” union “polls” and “surveys” one includes, the company ballot on Saturday was the tenth or eleventh occasion on which workers were compelled to vote on an “offer” from Coles that remained fundamentally unchanged throughout the dispute, and that they had previously rejected on multiple occasions.

The immediate context of Saturday’s ballot was the company’s February 10 announcement of an indefinite extension of the lockout. This was declared in a video by Coles Chief Operations Officer Matt Swindells. He venomously denounced workers who had rejected the agreement in a vote on February 2, praised the UWU and warned against “extremist” and “anti-union” socialists, i.e., the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site, who were disrupting the company-union sell-out operation.

The union responded by declaring that it would do nothing, other than hold more closed-door discussions with management and organise further ballots on the same agreement. The UWU, which declared assets valued at over $300 million at the end of the last financial year, including more than $94 million in cash reserves, reacted to the February 2 “no vote” by again vehemently rejecting calls for its vast coffers to be opened to provide desperately-needed strike pay.

It was in this context, with workers confronting a united front of the company and the union, as well as the prospect of weeks or months longer without any pay, that a reported 71 percent voted the agreement up in Saturday’s ballot.

The UWU immediately sent a text message to workers, declaring that it was “great to see so many people supporting the EA [enterprise agreement.]”

The analogy that comes to mind is criminals thanking their victims, after beating them into submission. The union is well aware that the vast majority of workers remain intensely hostile to the agreement and view it as a sell-out. Many of those who voted “yes” did so because they had been pauperised. Given the circumstances, the most remarkable aspect of the ballot is that at least 29 percent of workers voted “no.”

Notwithstanding the union’s claims to have achieved some sort of victory on behalf of workers, the agreement is actually worse than previous versions.

The UWU abandoned almost the entire log of claims lodged at the beginning of the dispute. An initial demand of a 5.5 percent per annum wage rise was scrapped for the company’s “offer” of 3.5 percent; calls for redundancies capped at the equivalent of 104 weeks of service were dropped for Coles’ proposal of 80, and any talk of workers being given the right to redeploy to the new automated facility that is to replace Smeaton Grange was dispensed with weeks ago.

Management and the union touted a $1,000 sign-on bonus, which had been rejected by workers last month as contemptuous. Coles, which reported half-year profits of more than $500 million last month, dismissed any suggestion of increasing the payment, even to a paltry $5,000 per worker, under conditions in which it has denied employees tens of thousands of dollars in wages.

To cover over the fact that it was enforcing all the company’s dictates, the UWU resorted to outright misinformation.

The union joined the company in hailing “enhanced redundancy provisions.” These, it indicated, would allow workers to take a voluntary redundancy at any time until Smeaton Grange is closed. Those who have read the agreement, however, know that voluntary redundancies remain capped at 80 workers, meaning some 270, the vast majority, are going to be sacked.

A supposed ratio of 80 percent permanent staff to 20 percent casuals, prior to the closure, is also bogus. The agreement presents this as an aspiration only, and insists that Coles will require “flexibility” and a “pragmatic approach” from the union, as it “downsizes” the workforce.

The union was very quiet about one clause in the agreement, which was not contained in previous versions. It states that workers will not be disciplined for participating in pickets and protests during the lockout, on the condition that the UWU ensures that “no further action will be taken for the remainder of the dispute.” In other words, the union has signed an agreement to suppress any opposition from workers to management attacks against them.

With extraordinary rapidity, the union and the company moved to engineer a return to work. In its Saturday text message, the UWU added insult to injury by inviting workers to participate in a “voluntary clean up ... at the site to allow it to get operational.”

The company informed workers that some of them would begin returning at 7 a.m. today, but not for regular shifts. Those will not begin until next Monday at the earliest. Instead, workers, some of whom have been at the facility for decades, are being hauled in for “refresher training.”

The character of this “training” is indicated by the fact that it will begin with workers being handed a formal letter on “expected workplace behaviour standards.” In other words, they will be subjected to a management harangue.

The speed with which the company and the management have orchestrated the return is dictated by two considerations. First, they both know they are sitting on a powder keg of opposition, and want to begin the shutdown of Smeaton Grange as quickly as possible.

Secondly, they are making an example of the workers and setting a precedent that will be deployed against other Coles staff, not in the distant future, but in the coming weeks and months. Coles management has indicated that it will rapidly press ahead with a sweeping restructure, aimed at saving $1 billion over five years, of which the Smeaton Grange warehouse closure is one part.

The Eastern Creek distribution centre in western Sydney, the Goulburn warehouse in regional New South Wales and two facilities in Brisbane are slated for imminent shutdowns.

In other words, the struggle at Smeaton Grange is not the end of the fight, but the beginning.

The warnings of the Socialist Equality Party, that anger and opposition are not enough, have been painfully confirmed. It is impossible to defend anything within the straitjacket of the unions, which are corporatised, anti-working class organisations.

This poses the need for workers at Coles, Woolworths and throughout the warehousing industry to make a complete break with the UWU and the other unions. Independent rank-and-file committees are required to organise a fight against the closures and in defence of all jobs.

This is a political struggle, directed not only against company management, but the corporate elite as a whole, the government, Labor, the unions and the draconian Fair Work industrial legislation that is used to suppress any collective action. To defeat this line-up requires a broader political movement of the working class.

A new, socialist perspective is required. Workers cannot defend their jobs and conditions, if they accept the “right” of Coles to slash costs in order to drive up profits and shareholder returns. Fundamental social rights can be guaranteed only if industry is operated on a different principle, of serving the needs of workers and society. This means placing Coles, Woolworths, the major corporations and the banks under public ownership and democratic workers’ control. That requires the fight for a workers’ government and for socialism.

Violent crackdown on Myanmar protests leaves 18 dead

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/01/myan-m01.html




Owen Howell
14 hours ago







Protests against the military coup in Myanmar were violently attacked by security forces yesterday, leaving 18 people dead and more than 30 wounded, according to the UN Human Rights Office. The bloodshed signals a further shift by the military junta towards the use of repression to try to stamp out a growing nationwide movement of mass protests and strikes opposed to the dictatorship.

Police and soldiers opened fire on crowds of peaceful demonstrators, with live rounds and rubber bullets, in multiple locations across Myanmar. Large deployments of riot police, armed with batons and shields, charged into crowds in both cities and rural areas, indiscriminately attacking protesters and by-standers.

In Yangon, the nation’s largest city and a centre of the anti-coup movement, police were out in force early and took up positions at the usual demonstration sites, detaining protesters as they arrived.

At around 8:30 a.m., police moved on thousands of marching doctors, nurses, and students from the city’s medical universities, who had gathered near Hledan Centre intersection. Social media footage showed police beating protesters and shoving the injured into police trucks. Around 200 medical students were detained.

Similar assaults were conducted against a teachers’ rally in the Yankin district and elsewhere throughout the city. After tear gas and shots in the air failed to disperse crowds, police began firing live ammunition at protesters. Dozens were shot and three young men died from their wounds. A woman also died of a suspected heart attack, after police set off a wave of stun grenades, her daughter and a colleague said.

In the south-eastern city of Dawei, at least four people were shot dead and 40 injured, the Irrawaddy reported. An ambulance driver in Bago, the site of another bloody state clampdown, told Agence France Presse he had sent the bodies of two 18-year-olds, shot dead, straight to the mortuary.

As the day went on, a bystander on a motorcycle died after being shot in the head by police in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city. Several volunteers providing medical aid to protesters were shot and injured. Later in the day, another passer-by was shot in the head and died instantly.

Meanwhile in Pakkoku, Magway Region, a man attempting to hide from soldiers in the street was shot dead. Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, also witnessed a determined crackdown in which 50 protesters were detained by authorities.

Despite such repressive measures, however, protesters were mostly undeterred by the deadly shootings and continued their marches in the afternoon. The exceptions were the towns of Lashio and Myeik, where police succeeded in breaking up protests.

The Myanmar protests have rapidly grown in scale over the past four weeks since the February 1 coup, when the armed forces—known as the Tatmadaw—seized control of the country and arrested leaders of the democratically-elected government, citing unfounded allegations of voter fraud in last November’s election. Protesters have demanded the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National Democratic League (NLD) and an end to the military dictatorship.

The junta’s methods of repression after the coup—internet shutdown, media censorship, a year-long state of emergency—took a decisively drastic turn on February 20, when a crackdown on a shipyard workers’ strike in Mandalay involved the direct firing of live rounds at protesters, resulting in at least two deaths and over 30 injuries.

The repression was stepped up on Friday as a troop of riot police charged protesters in the Hledan and Myaynigone districts of Yangon. Local media reported that shots were fired in the air near Yangon University, a main rallying point of the movement. Residents of the neighbourhood opened their doors to fleeing demonstrators. In Mandalay, four people were seriously wounded by shots from live rounds, with at least ten more injured by batons and slingshots.

In response, protesters and strikers have constructed barricades out of garbage bins and carts around areas of Yangon. They also began equipping themselves with hard hats, gas masks, and makeshift shields.

On Saturday, the crackdown intensified again. Police charges in Yangon targeted anyone in their path, including volunteer medics, trishaw drivers, and a pregnant woman. Bloody raids were reported nationwide. State-run television network MRTV announced that 479 protesters had been arrested on Saturday alone, among them numerous journalists.

In Monywa, the largest city of Sagaing Region in the northwest, one woman is believed to have been shot and seriously wounded. Witnesses of the Monywa protests, which comprised largely of teachers, told Reuters news agency that police surrounded the crowd and then used water cannon. Earlier, citizens of Monywa had reportedly declared a self-administrative city, accountable only to the representatives of the suspended parliament.

The current crackdown is taking place within the context of heightening political tensions. Thein Soe, chairman of the junta-appointed election commission, declared on Friday that the results of the November polls were officially invalid, despite the NLD’s landslide victory. On the same day, Myanmar’s Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun made a public appeal to the UN “to use any means necessary to take action against the Myanmar military.” He read the statement on behalf of Suu Kyi and her cabinet, who, he said, were still the legitimate government.

In the meantime, uncertainty has grown over Suu Kyi’s whereabouts, as the independent Myanmar Now website reported she was moved this week from house arrest to an undisclosed location. The next hearing in her case is scheduled for today.

It is not Suu Kyi and her NLD that are undermining the junta, but an extensive movement of the working class. The military is desperate to put a halt to a growing movement of striking workers that threatens to bring economic activity to a standstill. Loosely organised under the leadership of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), the widespread work stoppages and walkouts have effectively paralysed major sections of the economy: the civil service, healthcare, banking, education, and transport.

UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews has estimated that around three-quarters of the country’s one million civil servants are on strike. Additionally, junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing revealed this week that one-third of the nation’s hospitals are no longer functioning due to disruptions.

The power of this movement was demonstrated during last Monday’s general strike, in which millions turned out and refused to work under the military regime. This drew together doctors, miners, electricity workers, garbage collectors, and supermarket employees.

After Monday, strikes appear to be expanding into new sectors. Truck drivers began a strike against the coup on Thursday, by refusing to transport goods from the docks at Yangon’s four main ports. Joint secretary of the Myanmar Container Trucking Association said he estimates that about 90 percent of the city’s 4000 drivers are on strike, and have promised to deliver only essential food, medicine and fabrics for factories.

The junta’s deep fear of an imminent economic crisis underscores the violence now being used, to try to suppress the upsurge of the working class as quickly as possible. Economic growth for the financial year 2020–21 is expected to be just 0.5 percent, due partly to Myanmar’s failure to attract significant foreign investment, but above all to the global downturn caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

NBC Still Pushing The Idea That Helping Americans Will Destroy The Country

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-m53exTZrU&ab_channel=HardLensMedia

New York City Schools chancellor resigns as middle schools resume in-person learning

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/01/nyms-m01.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Robert Milkowski
15 hours ago







New York City educators must organize to close all schools and prevent the deepening spread of the pandemic. The New York City Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee is spearheading this fight, and we urge educators in the city and tri-state area to attend our next meeting at 7pm this Wednesday, March 3.

Last Thursday, New York City—the largest school district in the US with over 1.1 million students—reopened 471 middle schools for approximately 62,000 students in grades 6-8. Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio had already sent back middle school teachers on Monday, and is negotiating with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) to try to reopen high schools by the end of the year.

The volatility of the political situation, in which the Democratic Party has undertaken another highly unpopular step in opening more schools, was underscored by Thursday’s resignation of the Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza.


The following day, it was announced that Carranza will be replaced by Meisha Porter in mid-March. Porter, who has been the executive superintendent of the Bronx since 2018, stated during her first news conference Friday that the city is “ready to go” on reopening high schools. She pledged to meet this goal before the end of the school year, in line with the Biden administration’s campaign to reopen the majority of schools by the end of April.

On February 11, Carranza first announced that middle schools would reopen, the second phase of the city’s plan to resume in-person learning at all schools in order to send parents back to work producing profits for Wall Street. In a message to parents, Carranza falsely stated, “We have developed strong practices to help keep school communities healthy and safe.” He bragged about the totally inadequate testing program in which only 20 percent of students and staff are tested in each school on a weekly basis.

The level of trust parents had in Carranza and de Blasio has been reflected in the low number of returning students, with only 30 percent of parents opting for in-person learning since September.

The media have largely attributed the resignation to sharp differences Carranza had with Mayor de Blasio’s handling of the school system’s testing for gifted and talented programs and elite high schools that require an entrance exam for admission. The inequality in education after decades of budget cuts and under-funding of public schools has been framed entirely in racial terms by the Democrats, including both de Blasio and Carranza. Their solution of rationing quality education in the city has caused sharp divisions among these petty-bourgeois layers.

It is also likely that Carranza, knowing he would be replaced by a new administration in less than a year, sought to absolve himself of any responsibility for the wave of infections and deaths likely to hit city schools in the coming weeks as middle and high schools reopen. This mass reopening of schools coincides with the anticipated growth of more infectious and lethal variants of SARS-CoV-2, including a new mutation specific to New York City, B.1.526.

The campaign to reopen middle schools has had the fulsome support of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). With the collaboration of the UFT and its President Michael Mulgrew, de Blasio first reopened all public schools on September 29.

By early November, the seven-day citywide test positivity rate exceeded the 3 percent threshold that the UFT and de Blasio had negotiated for closing schools, prompting de Blasio to close schools. Only days later, de Blasio unilaterally reopened schools for K-5 students on December 7 with the support of the UFT. Both parties abandoned the 3 percent threshold and the positivity rates stood at 7 percent as middle schools opened Thursday morning.

Schools only closed last March due to the widespread opposition of educators, who threatened to carry out wildcat sick-out strikes. Despite the seriousness of the rapidly spreading pandemic, de Blasio argued in favor of allowing the schools to remain open. The slow response by the Democrats resulted in the city becoming the first epicenter of the pandemic in the US. The overall number of COVID-19 cases in New York City now stands at 712,389 with 29,088 deaths due to the virus.

Once again, de Blasio is now exploiting the likely temporary drop in the daily rate of COVID-19 cases to promote the reopening of middle schools. Mulgrew is reprising his role of cheerleader, recently stating, “These strict standards, and the requirement that buildings close temporarily when virus cases are detected, have made our schools the safest places to be in our communities during the pandemic.” He added, “They will continue to be the strongest protections for the health and safety of students and staff.”

In other words, the UFT is fine with sending another large group of students and educators back into middle school buildings that no amount of preparation will make safe.

Reacting to Carranza’s departure, Mulgrew praised him for his role last fall, “Richard Carranza was a real partner in our efforts to open school safely.” Mulgrew will surely find another “real partner” in Meisha Porter, who vowed on Twitter to “hit the ground running and lead our schools to a full recovery,” meaning full reopening as soon as possible.

Reflecting the thoroughly collaborative role that the pseudo-left plays within the teachers unions, after the middle schools had opened on Thursday a member of the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE)—the UFT caucus associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—posted an article on their website titled, “We Should Wait To Open Schools.”

The article provides a list of demands for a “safe” reopening and nowhere mentions the urgent need for educators to organize collectively to shut down schools as part of a broader program to stop community spread of the coronavirus. Similarly, Biden’s plan to reopen schools and the lies disseminated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are not raised.

There is a political logic in this. MORE is addressing the UFT and suggesting that with a series of safe-sounding but totally inadequate measures the UFT can negotiate a deal that MORE will endorse. In this appeal, MORE is following in the footsteps of its allies in the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), which recently negotiated a “safe” reopening of schools with Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Educators must resist the deadly drive to reopen schools in New York City, across the US and internationally by building independent rank-and-file safety committees that will organize the most far-reaching and necessary action to immediately close all schools and nonessential workplaces while providing full economic security for all workers affected. We urge educators in New York City and the tri-state area who seek to implement this program to attend the New York City Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee meeting at 7 p.m. this Wednesday, March 3.

Chicago and Cook County allocate the bulk of CARES Act funding to police and jail spending

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/01/illi-m01.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Alexander Fangmann
15 hours ago







It has recently come to light that both the City of Chicago and the government of Cook County, of which Chicago is the county seat, have chosen to spend the bulk of their discretionary federal COVID-19 relief funding on police and jails. The decision to allocate the bulk of funding toward the repressive apparatus of the state, pushed from the highest levels of the Democratic Party, is a clear sign of the priorities of the ruling class, which has devoted a comparatively miniscule amount towards any kind of relief for workers.

Although city budget director Susie Park had denied last June that relief money was going toward the police, recent attempts by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to shuffle budget lines, requiring approval by the city council, led to the discovery that she planned to allocate $281.5 million on police payroll costs. This figure is 70 percent of the $403 million in discretionary funding the city received from the federal government and amounts to around one-third of the city’s annual police payroll costs of about $862 million.

Lightfoot claimed criticism of the spending was “just dumb,” and asserted, “We saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by saying yes to the federal government.” She and other Chicago officials claim the city was just taking advantage of a government program that would allow it to be reimbursed for expenses already incurred, and that by not taking the money for police, they would be leaving money on the table, as it were.
Insofar as this is true, it is a complete indictment of the city’s spending priorities prior and through the first year of the pandemic. According to the Chicago Civic Federation, the city budgeted $2.45 billion on the police department and police officer pensions during the previous fiscal year, over 21 percent of total spending, a figure which does not include health care and other benefit costs, as those costs are not broken out by department. It also does not include $82.6 million set aside for settling lawsuits and paying judgments resulting from police violence, for which the city has spent $757 million from 2004 to 2018.

Following the protests in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd last year, Lightfoot rejected calls to “defund” the police, claiming in an October budget address, “In this moment in Chicago, we cannot responsibly enact any policies that make communities less safe.”

Continuing, Lightfoot made clear her priorities, “While we will slow the rate of growth, with a resulting $80 million in corporate fund savings, on my watch we will never make cuts or policy changes that inhibit the core mission of the police department, which is to serve and protect.”

During the same week in which Lightfoot fought to push through the city council vote approving the relief spending, a group of local investors and CEOs published an open letter in the Chicago Sun-Times offering a full-throated defense of Lightfoot’s policies, the most notable of which have been the push to reopen schools and the violent crackdown on protesters over the summer saying, “We commend you and your team for your steadfast leadership in navigating the city through this crisis.”

Circulated by the co-CEOs of private investment firm the Vistria Group, who have close ties to former president Barack Obama, the letter was signed by 63 corporate and educational leaders. Among the individuals offering their support were Andrew Clarke of Mars Wrigley, Chris Kempczinski of McDonald’s, Dave Casper of BMO Harris Bank, Roger Hochschild of Discover Financial Services, as well as Tom Ricketts of the Chicago Cubs, Mellody Hobson of Ariel Investments and Valerie Jarrett of the Barack Obama Foundation, among others.

This letter makes it clear that the decision to allocate the bulk of federal relief money to policing is in no way an idiosyncratic decision of Lightfoot, but is rather a position carefully worked out with the representatives of finance capital and the leadership of the Democratic Party.

Just this week it was also revealed that Cook County spent $181.7 million, or 42 percent of its $428.5 million in coronavirus relief funding on the sheriff’s office, of which $176 million went to payroll costs. The sheriff’s office is responsible for the enormous and notorious Cook County Jail, along with electronic monitoring and policing in certain parts of the county which do not have their own police departments. Currently holding around 3,600 people in atrocious conditions, the Cook County Jail is one of the largest pre-trial detention facilities in the world.

Notably, in July the Cook County Board passed a non-binding Justice for Black Lives resolution calling for the county to “redirect funds from policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement that promote community health and safety equitably.” This resolution received the support of 15 of the 17 commissioners, and at the time Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle spoke in favor saying, “I’m for reducing and redirecting our investment in law enforcement.”

Preckwinkle, who is also the chair of the Cook County Democratic Party, ran against Lightfoot in the mayoral race. Despite an undeserved reputation for being a progressive, Preckwinkle lost, largely as a result of her ties to Chicago alderman Ed Burke, who had been charged with extortion as a result of his corrupt practices.

Proving the essential unity of the Cook County Democratic Party on support for police and jail spending, Preckwinkle’s deputies offered reasoning similar to Lightfoot’s in defense of the decision to direct pandemic relief funds to the police. Cook County Budget Director Annette Guzman claimed the county did not want to be “fighting over things that are misrepresented,” and downplayed it, saying, “This is one part of a whole panoply of things the county did in response to COVID-19 that really went to making sure that our residents were taken care of and secure during a once-in-a-lifetime event. You can’t look at things in isolation. You’ve got to look at them in total.”

Criticisms of the spending from some of the pseudo-left aligned members of the Chicago City Council serve merely to illustrate how groups like the Democratic Socialists of America serve to sow illusions in the Democratic Party and the reformability of the capitalist system. A real fight to allocate resources for worker needs must start with the fight for socialism.

Truth without consequences

Judd Legum
Mar 1



On Friday, the Biden administration released a report from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) regarding the murder of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The DNI report concluded that the operation that killed Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of the Saudi regime, was ordered by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).


We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince [Mohammad] bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decisionmaking in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of [Mohammad] bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi.

This was an assessment made years ago, but kept secret by the Trump administration. In a January 2020 interview with journalist Bob Woodward, Trump bragged that he was able to protect MBS from any fallout. "I saved his ass… I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop," Trump said.

MBS has denied any involvement, but the evidence against him is overwhelming. Among other things, the Saudis involved with capturing and ultimately killing Khashoggi included numerous members of MBS' personal security detail, according to the DNI report.


The team...included seven members of Muhammad bin Salman’s elite personal protective detail, known as the Rapid Intervention Force (RIF). The RIF - a subset of the Saudi Royal Guard - exists to defend the Crown Prince, answers only to him, and had directly participated in earlier dissident suppression operations in the Kingdom and abroad at the Crown Prince’s direction. We judge that members of the RIF would not have participated in the operation against Khashoggi without Muhammad bin Salman’s approval.

Shortly after the release of the intelligence report, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken issued a press release called "Accountability for the Murder of Jamal Khashoggi." The release announced a new policy called the "Khashoggi Ban," which allows the State Department to deny visas to individuals acting on behalf of a foreign government that "have been directly engaged in serious, extraterritorial counter-dissident activities, including those that suppress, harass, surveil, threaten, or harm journalists." Blinken announced that the United States will immediately "impose visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals believed to have been engaged in threatening dissidents overseas, including but not limited to the Khashoggi killing."

But the visa restriction would not be imposed on the individual who ordered the operation against Khashoggi — MBS. Nor would MBS, who effectively rules the country since the Saudi King is in poor health, be subject to any other sanction.

At a press conference, Blinken was asked why MBS was let off the hook:


Q: Hello, Mr. Secretary… You talked about future – preventing future actions, and you have unveiled a new ban, Khashoggi Ban. But you have fallen short of punishing the very person that DNI has said is responsible for this. So how are you – because of this lack of accountability, how is that not counter to your actions to ensure accountability elsewhere in the future? Isn’t this counterproductive?

BLINKEN: ...As to accountability, again, I think this report speaks for itself. And the fact that we have provided the transparency necessary to shine a bright light on what happened through the assessment, not just of the media, as important as you are, but the United States Government is, in and of itself, I think significant action.

A Washington Post editorial sharply criticized the Biden administration's approach, saying they were giving "a pass" to MBS.

On Saturday, Biden himself was asked if MBS would receive any sanction. "There will be an announcement on Monday as to what we are going to be doing with Saudi Arabia generally," Biden responded. This created some speculation that the administration would take additional steps. But a White House official told Reuters that nothing new would be announced. "The administration took a wide range of new actions on Friday. The president is referring to the fact that on Monday, the State Department will provide more details and elaborate on those announcements, not new announcements," the official said.

Why is the Biden administration so reticent to punish MBS? There are a variety of potential explanations but the answer could come down to money.
The economic influence of MBS

MBS presides over a repressive regime and, according to the DNI, ordered an operation that resulted in the gruesome murder of a US-based journalist. But he still has lots of high-powered friends in the United States and elsewhere. They are willing to overlook MBS' human rights record and focus on the tens of billions in international investments that MBS makes through the Saudi sovereign wealth fund and other vehicles.

In December 2019, for example, MBS spearheaded the IPO of Aramco, Saudi's state-owned oil company. The offering raised $29 billion for less than 2% of the company, valuing it at $1.7 trillion — "the world’s biggest-ever IPO." (MBS had been hoping for a $2 trillion valuation.) The largest Wall Street banks "JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citigroup—all participated in the underwriting as joint global coordinators," Vanity Fair reported.

The massive IPO was part of MBS' broader initiative to diversify Saudi Arabia's economy beyond oil, a project he calls Saudi Vision 2030. The IPO injected more cash into Saudi's sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is a key investor in enterprises around the world. Since 2017, the PIF has hosted an annual conference called the Future Investment Initiative — better known as "Davos in the Desert."

In 2018, in the immediate wake of Khashoggi's murder, many corporate executives pulled out of the conference. But by 2019, many corporate executives quietly returned. The 2020 event was postponed until January 2021 due to COVID-19. Top executives from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Black Rock, Nasdaq, Carlyle, and other US financial giants were in attendance. The companies told the New York Times they participated in the event because of "the important business relationships they have with cash-rich Saudi Arabia."

The PIF is a significant player in US business. According to a recent filing with the SEC, the fund "increased its holding of US stocks to nearly $12.8 billion in the fourth quarter [of 2020] from $7 billion in the third quarter." The PIF, for example, currently owns $3.7 billion worth of Uber stock. The Saudi fund invested billions in Uber in 2016, years before the company went public.

Overall, the PIF controls $400 billion in assets and MBS plans to increase its holdings to over $1 trillion by 2025 as part of Saudi Vision 2030.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and others have urged the Biden administration, in response to Khashoggi's murder, to implement "financial" penalties against MBS and the Saudi government. But that could jeopardize the ability of powerful US companies to access PIF funds, which MBS effectively controls.
Blinken's perspective

Blinken has been the most outspoken opponent of taking more aggressive measures against MBS. "[T]he actions that we’ve taken is really not to rupture the relationship, but to recalibrate it to be more in line with our interests and our values. And I think that we have to understand as well that this is bigger than any one person," Blinken said on Friday.

Prior to his confirmation as Secretary of State on January 26, Blinken was the co-founder and Managing Partner in WestExec Advisors. In this role, Blinken advised prominent corporations on how to navigate the international world. He earned about $1.2 million in 2020 performing this work.

Among Blinken's clients at WestExec Advisors were numerous corporations with deep ties to Saudi Arabia and PIF. For example, in a financial disclosure released on New Year's Eve, Blinken revealed that Uber — which counts the PIF as a major, long-term investor — was a client. Blinken also represented SoftBank. The PIF is the largest investor in SoftBank's Vision Fund 1, a $98 billion technology-focused venture capital fund, contributing nearly half of the capital. SoftBank is currently seeking the PIF's investment in a follow-up vehicle, Vision Fund 2. Microsoft, another of Blinken's former clients, has deep ties with Saudi Arabia and MBS' Vision 2030. Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, signed an agreement with MBS in 2016, "to speed up the pace of the digital transformation in the Kingdom, as well as expand its systems support [center] at Saudi Arabia's royal court." In a statement, Nadella pledged to "come out with technology to translate the Vision 2030 into a reality, with a focus on human capital and innovation."

Blinken resigned from WestExec Advisors upon his confirmation and will not directly profit from the firm's future success. He sold his ownership stake in the firm and it will be paid out, with interest "over two years."

But more importantly, having immersed himself for years in the world of international corporate consulting, Blinken is acutely sensitive to the economic impact of imposing economic or other sanctions directly on MBS. It is, of course, possible that MBS is not being sanctioned for other reasons. But, at present, the economic interests of powerful corporations are being protected and issues of human rights are being subordinated.

Democrat Reassures Friend This One Of The Good Syrian Airstrikes

https://local.theonion.com/democrat-reassures-friend-this-one-of-the-good-syrian-a-1846366749





CHICAGO—Following a report Friday that Joe Biden’s first military action as president had killed at least 22 people at sites used by Iranian-backed fighters, local registered Democrat Tim Randall was overheard reassuring a friend that this was one of the good Syrian airstrikes. 

“No, no, don’t worry—these are the sorts of bombing raids we’re supposed to be doing,” the Illinois native said of the overnight attack near the Iraq-Syria border, adding that something had happened with U.S. troops overseas and that, for strategic reasons, the commander-in-chief basically had no choice but to respond with deadly force. 

“Obviously, you’re going to have some airstrikes, and trust me, this is the kind you want to see. While this was, technically, a lethal action on the sovereign territory of another nation, it was really more about sending a message. It’s like when Obama did it, okay? Look, I don’t blame you for being concerned, but you seriously shouldn’t sweat it.” 

According to Randall, the strike was undoubtedly part of a broader Middle East policy designed to ensure the United States would not have to continue intervening in the region for years on end.