L.A. methane leak

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perhaps fearing a repeat of the Nov. 29 debacle.

The crackdown on civil liberties itself hints at the effectiveness of mass protest. If world powers had nothing to fear from mass mobilization, why would they insist on a “state of emergency” to curtail it while football matches and public markets go on as usual? Indeed, the only way to challenge capitalism’s march toward the abyss is by mobilizing for system change. The modern capitalist economy simply cannot exist without climate-changing fossil fuels, and global lead­ ers are willing to go to any lengths to continue extract­ ing them—even if it means planetary destruction.

An investigation by InsideClimate News revealed that virtually every fossil-fuel company has known that burning fossil fuels causes climate change since the 1970s. The American Petroleum Institute ran a task force on CO2 between 1979 and 1983, but then campaigned against the Kyoto Protocol and spread lies about the uncertainty of climate change.

That revelation followed an exposé of documents showing that oil company Exxon conducted topnotch research into global warming starting in 1977. The company went so far as to outfit its largest su­ pertanker with instruments to measure the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide and developed its own in-house climate models that accurately predicted future atmospheric CO2 levels and warned of global temperature changes. But by 1989, the company had switched to funding climate-change deniers and lob­ bying to block any political action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

These investigations merely confirm what was al­ California that began in October continues to spew the toxic, highly potent greenhouse gas into the atmo­ sphere. Experts are calling the leak the worst environ­ mental disaster since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Aliso Canyon leak has caused health symp­ toms such as headaches, nausea, and vomiting among residents of the upscale Porter Ranch community in suburban Los Angeles, where the underground stor­ age facility is located. In addition to methane, the leaking gas contains benzene, a carcinogen. Two lo­ cal schools have closed, and more than 4500 families have left following a voluntary evacuation order. But the leak has global implications. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 28 times more powerful at trap­ ping heat than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time span, and 84 times more powerful over a 20-year time span, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The leak is releasing about 1200 tons of methane a day, causing an impact roughly equivalent to the daily emissions produced by 2.4 million cars.

The leak was first reported by gas company employ­ ees on Oct. 23. But Southern California Gas, the cor­ poration that operates the storage facility, publicly de­ nied that there was a leak for five days. The source of the leak is 470 feet underground in one of 115 aging wells drilled into a depleted oil reservoir, now used to store natural gas. A safety valve about 8500 feet down the well could have shut the leak down imme­ diately—except that the valve wore out in the 1970s, and the company decided to simply remove it rather than replace it.

Initial attempts to stop the leak by pouring heavy liquids down the well failed because the gas is shoot­ ing out at high pressure. While the methane is invis­ ible to the naked eye, infrared video shows the gas spewing out in a dark plume that reaches far up into the atmosphere. The gas company now expects the leak to continue until at least March. That’s when they will finish drilling a relief well to intercept the leaking well 8000 feet down.

Most of the natural gas produced in the United States now comes from hydraulic fracturing or fracking, which has poisoned the air and water of thousands. Injection of fracking wastewater into deep wells has caused hundreds of earthquakes in Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and other states.

While the scale of the Aliso Canyon leak is unprec­ edented, small leaks at storage facilities and other natural gas infrastructure are common. Studies using on-the-ground measurements and satellite imagery have indicated that 9-10% of the methane produced by U.S. natural gas extraction leaks directly into the atmosphere. Computer models indicate that this rate of leakage outweighs the climate benefit of switching power plants from coal to natural gas, which produces less carbon dioxide when burned. — CARL SACK SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 2016 7

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... U.S. imperialism & Syria 8 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 2016 (continued from page 5: “U.S. imperialism’s Syria strategy & the right of oppressed nations to self-determination”) overthrow the Assad government is acknowledged by virtually all sources from the UN to the New York Times and beyond.

With regard to bombing ISIS’s oil re­ fineries, The Times delicately notes and with perhaps an ounce of disbelief, “Concerns about leaving local citizens without crucial refining facilities and with the daunting job of rebuilding them later may be tempering the Amer­ ican [bombing] approach, some experts say” (emphasis added). The word “tem­ pering” is in fact a euphemism for leav­ ing these oil facilities largely intact in order to support, in a “tempered” man­ ner to be sure, ISIS’s anti-Assad objec­ tives.

More recently, top U.S. military offi­ cials have announced policy changes with regard to bombing ISIS-controlled oil refineries. Until mid-November the “official” U.S. policy was to limit bomb­ ing or degrading of these facilities to inflicting minor damage only—damage that could be easily repaired within a matter of weeks or months. “Until Mon­ day,” according to The New York Times of Nov. 16, “the United States refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1000 tanker trucks, because of concerns about causing civilian casualties. As a result, the Islamic State’s distribution system for exporting oil had remained largely intact.” Largely intact!

Today, U.S. policy has purportedly shifted to inflicting a modicum of great­ er damage on ISIS oil fields—at least this is what U.S. officials state for the record!

Meanwhile, Turkey has been more than content to stand by, if not assist in, the ISIS slaughter of Kurdish fighters in Kobani and elsewhere. The Turkish government prefers the massacre of its oppressed Kurdish population by ISIS to the Kurds’ advancing their historic struggle for national liberation and self-determination. But the Kurdish leader­ ship, which mistakenly accepts support from the U.S., nevertheless repeatedly states that their objective is self-deter­ mination for a future Kurdistan and not the removal of the Assad government. Conflicting interests among U.S. allies There is little doubt that the special regional interests of all U.S.-allied na­ tions, from Turkey to the Gulf State oil monarchies, NATO, as well as Israel, play a role in the present Syrian and related Middle East wars. But these interests are invariably subordinate to those of the dominant and only world superpower—U.S. imperialism.

Both the Saudis and Israelis bitterly complained when the Obama admin­ istration signed the recent nuclear ac­ cords with Iran. The Saudis were not pleased when the U.S. stood mute when it bombed Yemen to smithereens, al­ though the U.S. secretly supplied the Saudi military with the intelligence to do so. In all these instances, and several others, there are undoubtedly conflict­ ing interests, with the U.S. preferring to resume, for example, its long-inter­ rupted exploitation of Iranian oil while the Saudis see Shiite Iran as a rival for financial and political influence in the region.

Today, as the U.S. purports to increase bombing of ISIS oil facilities, the Saudis do the opposite and cease its essentially minimal or token bombing of ISIS, in­ stead turning Saudi air power to its on­ going slaughter in Yemen. In the same vein, Turkey idly stands by, if not assists, as ISIS slaughters the Kurds, while U.S. military policymakers, for their own imperial reasons to be sure, aim their airpower at ISIS in “support” of Kurds. But again, these realities on the ground are fundamentally subordinate to the greater aims and objectives of the U.S. imperial behemoth. No one would deny, for example, that the U.S. has not at any time in history ever supported the his­ toric struggle of the Kurdish people to reunite their long imperialist-divided Kurdish nation.

An insightful Dec. 3 New York Times article entitled “Germany Rebukes Its Own Intelligence Agency for Criticiz­ ing Saudi Policy” makes this clear. The article begins: “The German govern­ ment issued an unusual public rebuke to its own foreign intelligence service on Thursday over a blunt memo stat­ ing that Saudi Arabia was playing an increasingly destabilizing role in the Middle East.”

The secret memo, leaked by sources inside the German agency, the BND, noted: “Saudi rivalry with Iran for su­ premacy in the Middle East, as well as Saudi dependency on the United States, were the main drivers of Saudi foreign policy.” And further, this embarrass­ ing memo, repudiated by the Angela Merkel government, stated: “In Syria, Saudi Arabia’s aim was always to oust President Bashar al-Assad, and that has not changed” (emphasis added).

We should add here that the French move to bomb ISIS is not without its limitations. The New York Times aptly notes: “While France has been con­ ducting scores of airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq, it has been bomb­ ing inside Syria only sparingly, wary of inadvertently strengthening the hand of President Bashar al-Assad by killing his enemies.”

Imperialism’s major policy shift The recent Russian intervention in Syria at the request of the Assad gov­ ernment has convinced virtually all that Assad’s immediate removal is no longer on the order of the day. Hence, we see all the anti-Assad forces, governments, their patrons and the like scurrying to conferences around the world to patch together diverse and sometimes war­ ring coalitions to eventually meet in negotiations with the Assad govern­ ment to partake in the determination of Syria’s future.

This unfolding worldwide U.S.-orches­ trated “negotiations” scene constitutes a grotesque imperialist spectacle that tragically replicates almost all previous U.S. maneuvers to determine the future composition of governments that it has or seeks to remove. Literally hundreds of parties, all favored to one degree or another by U.S. imperialism and its al­ lies, meet in conferences today that are virtually presided over by Secretary of State John Kerry, and/or other top U.S. officials, to determine who will get what in a future Syria.

The latest U.S.-orchestrated gambit unfolded during a two-day conference in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital. Entitled, “Syrian Rebels Form Bloc for New Round of Peace Talks,” the Dec. 10 New York Times describes it well: ”An array of Syrian opposition groups agreed here on Thursday to form a new and more inclusive body to guide the diverse and divided opponents of Presi­ dent Bashad al-Assad in a new round of planned talks aimed at ending the Syr­ ian civil war.

“The formation of such a body has been seen by the United States and the opposition’s other international sup­ porters as a prerequisite for new talks, and the new body appeared to fit the bill by pulling together political dis­ sidents who have long distrusted one another as well as rebel groups fight­ ing the Syrian Army. ‘This is the widest participation for the opposition, inside and outside of Syria, and we have the participation of the armed groups,’ said Hadi al-Bahra, a member of the exiled Syrian National Coalition who attended the two-day conference that produced the new body.”

(We should note here that the Kurds rejected participation at the Riyadh conference and instead organized their own meeting in Kurdish-occupied re­ gions. None of the participants advocat­ ed the Assad government’s removal. In some of these Kurdish areas the Assad government continues to pay the sala­ ries of Kurdish officials—a détente of sorts.)

The Riyadh conference signaled a ma­ jor shift in the orientation of U.S. impe­ rialism and its allies over the past five years. Previously, all such conferences were premised on the understanding that the Assad government must fall via (Left) A destroyed tank lies in the streets of Aleppo, Syria.

the military actions of all its opponents, included those armed and financed by the U.S.

Today, this equation has dramatically changed in that the Assad government is expected by all to have a prime seat at the scheduled late January negotiat­ ing sessions. That is, assuming the pres­ ent U.S./UN-brokered agreements hold, the U.S.-led effort to remove Assad by the application of military force, will be set aside in favor of a negotiated settle­ ment with the Assad government repre­ sentatives at one side of the “bargaining table” and the combined forces, yet to be specifically determined, of all U.S.-al­ lied forces in all their reactionary mani­ festations, on the other.

Right of oppressed nations to self-determination The right to self-determination of op­ pressed nations, historically trampled on by imperialist conquerors and colo­ nizers over the past several centuries, applies with full force to Syria today. It applies to all oppressed nations regard­ less of the qualities or class nature of their leadership.

From the time of the 1917 Russian Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, and long before, the de­ feat of the imperialist, colonial oppres­ sor has always been central to revolu­ tionary internationalist working-class politics even if the oppressed nation was led by feudal monarchs.

U.S. imperialist war and intervention today represents nothing less than the crystallization and ruthless application of the ruling-class power of an Ameri­ can capitalism in crisis—a crisis so deep that the imperialist beast is com­ pelled to send its armies, privatized death squads, drones, and surrogates everywhere on earth to advance its in­ terests.

Today, U.S. imperialism is focused on the Middle East, where its multiple wars against the oppressed people and nations have wrought untold death and destruction. Yet, U.S. policy in that oil-rich region remains in an advanced state of disarray. Having conquered Iraq with military force virtually unequalled in the modern era, the establishment of a stable regime that can guarantee U.S. control of that nation’s vast fossil fuel resources remains in question. The lat­ est tyrant that the U.S. installed, Haider al-Abadi, fears that Iraq’s military and political association with the U.S. can only outrage vast portions of its popu­ lation, which have experienced first hand the horrors unleashed by the U.S. military machine. Indeed, it is widely accepted that past U.S. policies in Iraq laid the foundations for the emergence of ISIS.

In the wake of virtually all U.S. Middle East wars over the past decade and longer, “failed states” have been the inevitable outcome. In Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, death and destruction and endless internecine wars waged by competing tribal-based reactionary groups are accompanied by almost un­ believable human suffering—poverty, disease and starvation—U.S. imperial­ ism’s trademark and legacy for whom­ ever it conquers.

Again, unconditional support to the right of self-determination of all op­ pressed nations, free from all imperial­ ist intervention in all its manifestations, is a central and strategic component of revolutionary socialist politics.

Having affirmed this fundamental working-class principle, support to self-determination is not at all syn­ onymous with political support to the governments or regimes of these op­ pressed nations—in the case of Syria, the Bashar al-Assad government. So­ cialists have no illusions that the Assad (continued on page 9)

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... Mumia’s fight for medical treatment tempt for its own laws and rules: the suppression and then attempt to keep its Hepatitis-C Treatment Proto­ col “confidential;” submission to court of a false dec­ (continued from page 4: “Radical Tradition”) ment was exploded by the DOC expert witness on Hep­ laration from its chief of DOC health services; and its expert witnesses’ testimony that withheld information also be cured. But the cost in the United States is $1000 atitis-C treatment, Dr. Jay Cowan, who responded to from Mumia’s medical records that contradicted their per pill, making a course of treatment approximately attorney Robert Boyle’s question, that “yes, he would opinions. In cross-examination Mumia’s lawyers suc­ recommend the new antivirals to anyone who had cessfully discredited the DOC’s presentation of false or At the close of the intensive evidentiary hearing on Dec. 23 after the testimony of Dr. Harris, two DOC ex­ The DOC’s new “Interim Hepatitis-C Protocol,” secret­ pert specialists, the DOC’s chief medical officer and the ly issued on Nov. 12, 2015, does not take any account At the close of the evidentiary hearing, Judge Mariani SCI Mahanoy chief medical officer, the following was of the new drugs’ potential to cure Hepatitis-C and stop set Jan. 13, 2016, as the date that all parties would get its deadly progression and alleviate painful and debili­ transcripts of the hearing, and that written briefs were • Mumia Abu-Jamal has active chronic Hepatitis-C, tating symptoms suffered by a significant portion of the due by both Mumia and the DOC by Feb. 3, 2016. The stage-two fibrosis with a 63 percent probability of cir­ prison population. Rather this is a protocol to deny this judge said he would decide as quickly as possible, mak­ new treatment to Pennsylvania prisoners. According to the testimony of the head of DOC medical services, Dr. But just as Mumia wouldn’t have gotten into court • Mumia’s severe itchy skin rash is not resolved de­ Peter Noel, only five out of some 6000 prisoners with on this case without international publicity, medical treatment to keep Mumia alive and for those other • Severely itchy skin is often a secondary symptom of The DOC protocol does not allow treatment to be con­ thousands suffering from Hepatitis-C won’t be won re­ sidered until the prisoner is close to death, with severe lying on the courthouse or the state legislatures. While • There is no medical reason for Mumia not to be fighting hard in the courts, there can be no illusion in The DOC lawyers and doctors, from the medical spe­ The dispute is clearly not a medical or scientific one. cialist “experts” to the head of its medical services, The state, its cops, its prisons are intent on silencing It is social, one of cost and, in regard to prisoners, one laid bare the reality of medicine for profit in capital­ Mumia, and what we are dealing with now is state ex­ of peneological purpose. This was the proverbial “el­ ist America and the function of prisons as repressive ecution by medical mistreatment. The state won’t stop; ephant in the room” that the DOC witnesses would not punitive institutions without a modicum of care for the the only way Mumia will survive is if he is freed. It will take a broad international campaign that calls for agita­ The DOC maintains that this is simply a case of doc­ The court evidentiary hearing unfolded with rare tion, publicity, and demonstrations building the broad­ tors with differing opinions of treatment. That argu­ public display of the DOC’s mendacity and utter con­ est possible support demanding Mumia’s freedom.... n (continued from page 8)

regime represents any form of revolu­ tionary nationalist or otherwise pro­ gressive break with capitalism.

Neither do we hold that the Assad government strives to achieve an egali­ tarian society that advances the inter­ ests of the working class and peasant majority as against Syria’s capitalist elite.

Nevertheless, the removal of Assad’s oppressive capitalist Syrian regime is the sole responsibility of the Syrian people, not U.S. imperialism and its re­ actionary allied forces.

Socialist Action’s unanimously ad­ opted 2014 national convention Po­ litical Resolution makes this absolutely clear: “Today’s war in Syria is a war between U.S. imperialism’s direct and indirect capitalist-fundamentalist and reactionary forces on the one hand and the capitalist Assad government on the other. The Syria masses have no independently organized political, military or economic presence. Under these circumstances, Socialist Action stands full square against U.S. imperial­ ism and those allied with it in Syria and elsewhere. In accord with our support to the right of self-determination of all oppressed nations, even those under capitalist rule, we are for the defeat of the U.S.-backed imperialist interven­ tion in all its forms.

“We oppose its direct aid to the FSA or its indirect support or acquiescence to ISIS, through U.S. surrogates in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or anywhere else.

In the U.S. this translates into our full support of the key demand and the ac­ tions called by the United National An­ tiwar Coalition (UNAC) to “End All U.S.

Intervention In Syria!”

Socialists include in this strategic orientation the absolute necessity of Syrian workers and peasants, however difficult and distant under the present circumstances, to struggle to form their own independent fighting revolution­ ary socialist parties aimed not only at opposing all imperialist wars, includ­ ing in Syria, but at establishing socialist societies where capitalist exploitation and oppression are forever ended.

Syria’s right to seek allies against im­ perialist intervention Syria’s right to self-determination necessarily includes the right of the Syrian government to seek and accept the support of the militia fighters that are today defending Syria against im­ perialist intervention in several of its $90,000….

not in dispute:

rhosis of the liver. • Mumia has “anemia of chronic disease.”

spite months of intensive treatment.

HCV.

treated with the new antivirals for Hepatitis-C.

directly address.... manifestations. These include fighters from Lebanon and Iran, that is, the forces of Hezbollah, who defeated the last Israeli in­ vasion of their country, and the Shiite militias from Iran, who, in the past, joined with Shiite fighters in Iraq to challenge the U.S. invasion and war against that nation.

In a similar vein, the agree­ ments recently signed by Syria with Iran, Hezbollah, and Rus­ sia to share intelligence infor­ mation in fighting ISIS, al-Qae­ da and all other groups aimed at removing the Assad govern­ ment, including the 13-nation U.S. imperialist-led “coalition,” fall squarely within Syria’s right to self-determination. This in­ cludes Syria’s agreement to accept Russian air, naval, and related military support to ac­ complish the same end.

President Obama has repeatedly as­ serted that U.S. war aims in Syria are “strategically” opposed to those of the Russians. U.S. imperialism has been organized for almost five years to over­ throw the Assad regime. Whatever its motives, the Russians are in Syria at the behest of the Syrian government, not to overthrow it.

Undoubtedly, the Russian capitalist government of Vladimir Putin has its own reasons for accepting Syria’s in­ vitation to intervene, including NATO’s increasing encroachment on its bor­ ders and the U.S. and European Union economic sanctions. Revolutionary socialists suffer no illusions that capi­ talist Russia can serve as Syria’s strate­ gic ally in the present war. Indeed, the Putin government has consistently and cynically offered itself as a mediator in the Syrian war, repeatedly proposing a “negotiated solution” wherein all par­ ties, including U.S. imperialism and its NATO allies, as well as the Saudis and others, will collectively decide Syria’s fate.

Following Putin’s private talks with John Kerry, Putin remarked, “We have an understanding how we should pro­ ceed if we talk about a political settle­ ment. We need to work on a new [Syr­ ian] constitution, new elections and the control over their outcome” (em­ phasis added). Thus, Putin’s cynical mindset, as with his U.S. negotiating counterparts, includes his thesis that Syria’s fate is to be determined not by the Syrian people but by the deals bro­ kered by others, indeed, by deals whose “outcome” is “controlled” in advance.

At least for the moment, however, Russia on the one hand and U.S. imperi­ Hepatitis-C who could pay the $90,000 cost.” active HCV are getting treatment.

complications from cirrhosis of the liver….

medical well-being of prisoners. alism on the other are on opposite sides of a U.S. imperialist-led war against the poor and oppressed Syrian nation.

Russia is no newcomer to “deals” in the Middle East. It gave its assent to the U.S./NATO “humanitarian war” against Libya that essentially destroyed that country. Revolutionary socialists should indeed expect Russia to include at the “negotiating” table the advance­ ment of its own interests even if these are at odds with those of the Syrian people.

Yet Russia’s actions in driving ISIS and related pro-U.S. forces farther from the government-held Damascus capital and surrounding regions has undoubtedly altered the calculus of imperialism’s previous equation, that is, the military conquest of Syria and the imposition of a new regime directly beholden to U.S. imperialist interests. Perhaps now, given the reality on the ground that the Assad government has not been obliterated, as originally planned, the outcome will be perhaps somewhat less onerous with regard to Syria. Socialists cannot be neutral in such matters.

Similarly, with the Russian air force entry into Syria, the various “no-fly zones” previously contemplated by the Obama administration and formally proposed by leading Democrats (Hill­ ary Clinton) and Republicans are today excluded. Clinton herself stated bluntly that with the Russian entry this overt U.S.-imposed “no-fly zone” option was no longer a viable option.

The tragedy of Syria today We are nevertheless compelled to rec­ ognize that any “negotiated settlement” to the imperialist-led war against Syr­ ian cannot be expected to represent a misleading evidence. obtaining justice there.

(Above) Wounded civilians arrive at hospital in Aleppo in 2012.

lasting gain for the Syrian people. Ab­ sent a powerful revolutionary force on the field of action to effectively chal­ lenge both the imperialist intervention and pose a working-class alternative to the Assad regime, the likely outcome will be some variant of an imperialistimposed “regime change”—as opposed to an outright imperialist-led conquest and occupation of Syria, the latter be­ ing the original and now apparently thwarted, for the time being at least, intention of the U.S. warmakers.

The Russian intervention may well have prevented the overt marching of reactionary jihadist/religious funda­ mentalist groups or other imperialistallied forces into Damascus with a re­ sulting Libyan-type chaos, anarchy, and bloodbath to follow. Historic tragedy has a habit of unfolding in a myriad of forms—some less devastating than others. Here we have a distinction, per­ haps with a significant difference, in that the opportunities for future Syrian anti-capitalist struggles may become somewhat improved.

Antiwar and social justice fighters can best help to tilt the scale in favor of Syria’s people and future class-struggle fighters by building the most power­ ful U.S. movement possible demanding the immediate and unconditional with­ drawal of U.S. military aid and forces in all their manifestations from Syria. Re­ moving the imperialist boot from Syria and the Middle East more generally best opens the door for the oppressed masses to resume their struggle.

U.S. out now! Self-determination for Syria! n ing this case his priority....

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website: http://socialistaction.ca plans to remove the fighter jets.

Sadly, they’re right. In­ stead of saying, honestly, that Western military inter­ vention has outraged the peoples of the region and promoted the rise of ISIS, instead of admitting that Ottawa and its imperialist allies have no legitimate reason to in­ tervene in Iraq, Syria, or for that matter in Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, or else­ where, Trudeau espouses a contradic­ tory policy. It is based on a shallow and opened the door to ISIS, al-Nusrah, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, and other off­ shoots of al-Qaeda.

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SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 2016 9 ... Syria