Vol. 77/No. 27 July 15, 2013
July 15, 1988
The cover story issued by the Pentagon and the Reagan administration to justify the July 3 shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 is coming apart. What were initially presented as facts are now being contradicted as more of the truth comes out.The Airbus plane was destroyed over Iranian waters by missiles fired from the USS Vincennes, one of the 27 warships that the U.S. government has stationed in the region. The 290 people killed included 66 children.
The Iran Air flight was a regularly scheduled civilian shuttle from the Iranian coastal city of Bandar Abbas to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, across the Persian Gulf.
President Ronald Reagan described the firing of a missile at the civilian airliner as “a proper defensive action.” He later expressed “deep regret” in a letter sent to the Iranian government.
July 22, 1963
A unique incident in the current struggle for Negro equality demonstrates the power of mass action—the kind of action it is going to take to shake up the white power structure in the U.S. and get some meaningful civil-rights legislation out of congress. The incident occurred in Cambridge, Maryland, on the night of July 11. Some 300 persons had demonstrated for civil rights on the courthouse steps and had been pelted with eggs by white racists. They maintained order and were returning to the Negro section of town when 17-year-old William Jackson, was arrested by state police for “carrying a paring knife.”As word of this spread a huge crowd of Negroes formed and began marching on the armory where young Jackson was being held. The police released the prisoner, who was then hoisted to the shoulders of his comrades and carried away in jubilation.
July 16, 1938
Japan’s attempt to establish its imperialist domination over China by force of arms has already been proved, in this first year, to be an adventure hopelessly doomed to defeat. China’s vastness, Japan’s frailty, and the struggle for power among the great imperialist nations of the world, all spell defeat for the ambitious robber who is seeking, belatedly, to imitate his older imperialist brothers in the game of conquest.Not even from the military point of view can Japan boast of any important achievement in this year of warfare, especially when we consider the inferiority of Chinese military equipment and the even more important fact that the present bourgeois leadership in China has not dared to draw on the real resources that lie in the Chinese masses for resistance and counterattack.