What will bring the troops home?

What will it take to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and bring the troops home?

Bush may up his “I feel your pain” rhetoric in response to his drop in the polls, but he has just restated his intention of “staying the course.” And to stop him will take more than “symbolic” votes by the Democrats, who now control Congress because the people want them to stop the war.

The U.S. and Britain, the current and former colonial powers, have no right to send their troops to the Middle East in the first place. This is pure imperialism, an attempt to conquer the area containing the richest concentration of valuable natural resources. The new Iraqi hydrocarbons law, drafted by U.S. “consultants,” proves what anti-war demonstrators have said all along—the supposed war on terror is really a war for the oil companies. Immense profits are involved.

The Iraqi people know this and are resisting with greater and greater success, even though the price they pay is horrendous.

Most in the Pentagon know the war in Iraq is lost, but the high stakes involved for U.S. capital keep them from calling it quits. The longer the troops stay, the worse it gets. But the corporate bosses who put this administration in power just won’t let them leave. So the vicious occupation goes on, resistance to foreign domination grows, and so does hatred for U.S. imperialism all over the world.

There are parallels to Vietnam. During the 1968 Tet Offensive, coordinated uprisings occurred all over the south, including in all the major cities. The preparations had been made right under the noses of the South Vietnamese puppet regime and the U.S. occupation forces.

This Jan. 22 in Iraq, an armored U.S. SUV driven by Iraqis in U.S. uniforms penetrated multiple levels of security to enter a base in Karbala, a suburb of Baghdad. They “drove directly to a building housing security officials planning counter-insurgency activity. They opened fire on a meeting in progress, targeting only Americans. After 20 minutes of exchanged gunfire, the attackers got back in their SUV and drove away.” (commondreams.org) Five U.S. military planners were killed.

It confirmed what the commanders already knew—that anti-U.S. sentiment in Iraq is enormous; people wanting to drive out the occupiers are working in every sphere of life. Even the polls show that 80 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. troops out.

So what does it mean when both Republicans and Democrats say that a “stable Iraqi government” must be in place and the Iraqi army and police must take over the “war on terror” before the U.S. can withdraw completely?

The White House has already declared all Iraqi resisters to be terrorists. When the foreign troops are finally forced to withdraw, the puppets put in power by the U.S. will flee or be pulled down by the enraged populace. That’s what happens when colonial regimes are forced out—the collaborators are finished, and those who opposed them take charge.

Thus, to demand a “stable” government, by which the politicians really mean a pro-U.S. government, means the occupation troops will have to stay there indefinitely. The Iraqi people are not going to give up, just as the Palestinians have not given up and the Vietnamese never gave up.

This puts the Democrats who want to put conditions on ending the war in the same camp as those who hatched the invasion and lied to the people about it, from Bush on down. Their “symbolic” vote so far is just for show.

So who will stop the war? The people—here, inside the occupied countries and around the world. The U.S. soldiers who refuse to fight and thereby resist a chain of command that sends young workers to fight rich men’s wars. The civilians who disrupt military recruitment. The community groups that demand money for jobs, education, health care, aid to Katrina survivors and all the other human needs sorely neglected as hundreds of billions get poured down the rat hole of the war machine.

We can’t let up. After Jan. 27 will be nationally coordinated actions on Feb. 17—No More Money for War Day—that target the war budget. Then comes a March to the Pentagon on March 17, the fourth anniversary of the war. In between will be countless acts of protest and resistance on many, many fronts.

Let’s unite our forces to bring all the troops home—not next year or next decade but now!