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Iraq in chaos

 Britain then established a line of client kings, who were given a spurious "independence". The last of the these client monarchs, Feisal II, was murdered with his whole household in July 1958, while his Prime Minister, attempting to escape from Baghdad dressed as a woman, was also captured and executed. Abdul Qassim, who led the rebellion, was similarly executed at the next coup in 1963. Then came a succession of dictators (sometimes supported by Britain, sometimes overturned if they got out of line), produced by vicious gang warfare among the strong-arm boys. The last one was perhaps the worst of them, Saddam Hussein, who like Stalin established himself firmly in power by murdering thousands of opponents in his own party and outside it.

None of this, though all of it is easily discoverable at the nearest public library, was apparently known to Bush or Blair. After the first excuse, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, was found to be false, the next claim was that the invaders were going to establish a united democratic Iraq. It was clear from the beginning to anybody who had a library ticket that the invaders could have a united Iraq if they wanted it, or they could bring democracy to the Iraqis if they wanted to, but what they could not have was a united democratic Iraq. The beginning of Iraqi democracy would also be the end of Iraqi unity. The hatred felt since Muhammad's death between Sunnis and Shias had been exacerbated (if that were possible) by the fact that Saddam was a Sunni, and favoured Sunnis in his rule; so the detestation felt by Shias for Sunnis was redoubled. Clearly removing the iron grip of the tyrant Saddam would let loose all this desperate acrimony - and, of course, it has done. It is strange that none of the many high-powered advisers who surround Bush and Blair could work this out.

The net result of all the soldiers' blood, Treasury billions, and hatred throughout the Muslim world, which the invasion has brought America and Britain, is that the Islamic fundamentalists (who lasted in Iraq only until Saddam could drag them to the gallows) are now triumphant. Men not wearing beards and women not wearing veils both risk being attacked. The education of women is now taboo. The Sunni and Shia "militias" - armed gangs - routinely slaughter victims from the opposite community. Arabs and Kurds raid each other. The Christian minority is under threat. (Paradoxically they apparently think they were much better off under Saddam than they are now.) The handful of Jews left in Baghdad (137,000 Iraqi Jews left or were driven out after the establishment of Israel) were able to worship in their one remaining mosque under Saddam; since the invasion, they do not dare to do so.

The allegation of Bush and Blair that they were driving Islamic fundamentalism out of Iraq is now shown to be exactly mistaken; they have succeeded only in bringing it into Iraq. Capitalism cannot even succeed in bringing about all the results that the capitalists want - even the strongest capitalist state in the world cannot achieve all its aims; so what chance has capitalism of bringing about the results that the rest of us want?

ALWYN EDGAR

Cooking the books(1)

Who’s to blame for carbon emissions?

In 2004 the Office for National Statistics published a report on “The impact of UK households on the environment through direct and indirect generation of greenhouse gases”. It concluded that of the 718.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted in the UK in 2001 “households were directly or indirectly responsible for 612.4 million”. That’s 85 percent. Can this be right? Is it possible that industry is only responsible for at the very most 15 percent? How can this be?

To arrive at this figure, the government’s statisticians first calculated how much households directly emitted through burning gas, oil, petrol and coal to heat their homes, cook their food, drive their cars, etc and reached a figure of 155.8 million tonnes. To this a further 2.4 million was added to take account of the emission of other greenhouse gases from households’ using aerosols, fridges and air conditioning equipment, giving a total of 158.2 million, or only 21.6 percent of the total.

But the statisticians didn’t stop there. They then proceeded to calculate how much households were responsible for “indirectly”, explaining:

“Indirect greenhouse gas emissions are those arising through household demand for electricity, public transportation and demand for goods and services. Indirect emissions are considered to be embedded in the product purchased. Electricity contains the embedded emissions from the combustion of coal, gas, oil, etc used in its generation. Similarly, food products contain indirect emissions from the use of pesticides and fertilisers as well as enteric emissions from livestock”.

Some might consider it reasonable to include the emissions resulting from the generation of the electricity used by households for lighting, heating, cooking, TV, computer, music centres, etc, but one consequence of this is that responsibility for the emissions is thereby shifted from the power station companies to households. Still, at least the power stations will be held responsible for the emissions resulting from the generation of the electricity supplied to industry, won’t they? No. Read the passage above again: “indirect emissions are considered to be embedded in the product purchased”. What this means is that the electricity consumed in the production of some product purchased by a household is not attributed to the industry that produced it, but to the household that purchased it.

It’s the same with transport. The emissions caused by bus companies, train companies and airlines are not attributed to them, but to their passengers. And, as the above quote specifically says, the emissions from food production – and agriculture contributes quite a bit to greenhouse gas emissions as methane – are to be attributed to us who buy the food.

When all these dubious calculations are done, the government statisticians saddle households with responsibility for a further 456.6 million tonnes of emissions.

But what, on this logic, is left as industry’s responsibility? 15 percent perhaps. No, again. The government is also a final consumer of electricity and products and, on the report’s logic, is to be blamed for the emissions resulting from their production. Though the report does not calculate this, from other statistics it will be more than half of the remaining 15 percent. In the end, industry and agriculture are going to be held responsible only for the emissions generated by what they accumulate as new capital, or about 7 percent. Which is ridiculous.

There is another way of looking at the matter. From the point of view of Marxian economics, wage and salary workers are not final consumers. What we spend on heating, lighting, cooking, travelling, food, recreation, entertainment, etc is expenditure on what we must consume to reproduce our labour power; which we sell to our employer, who in using it is the real final consumer.

So, it’s the other way round. Instead of the emissions caused by capitalist industry being attributed to us, even that from our direct heating, cooking, driving, etc should be “indirectly” attributed to them. They rather than us are responsible for the great bulk of carbon emissions, even if this is in response to the pressure of the competitive struggle for profits that is built into capitalism. So, in the end, it’s the whole capitalist system that’s to blame.

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