Coalition sets national protests:
STOP the war before it starts
By Greg Butterfield
With each passing day, the Bush administration grows more
isolated in its plan to launch a full-scale invasion of Iraq.
Among the world leaders who have condemned Washington's war
plan is Nelson Mandela, the heroic symbol of South Africa's
anti-apartheid struggle.
But isolation is not enough to stop a new war, said members
of a recent peace delegation to Iraq headed by former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark. A powerful people's movement is
needed, they declared.
At a Sept. 4 news conference at the National Press Club in
Washington, D.C., the delegates joined with anti-war
organizations, Muslim and African American community leaders,
students and labor activists to announce plans for a National
March on Washington to Stop the War on Iraq on Oct. 26. A march
will also be held in San Francisco.
Organizers are calling on opponents of war and racism to
protest in cities around the world that day. October 26 is the
first anniversary of the Patriot Act that curtailed civil
liberties in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, disaster.
The Oct. 26 March on Washington was initiated by
International ANSWER--the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism
coalition, the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation and
the National Lawyers Guild.
"People in the United States and everywhere have an
obligation to stop the Bush administration's drive to a new,
all-out military aggression against Iraq," said Brian Becker, a
member of the Clark delegation and spokesperson for ANSWER.
"The Bush administration has no right to wage war against a
country that is posing no threat to the U.S.
"Disregarding all international law, President George W.
Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld and Co. are planning to send tens of thousands of
young GIs to kill and be killed in another war for oil
profits.
"The most important point is this," Becker added. "While
world public opinion is decidedly against Bush's war drive, it
will take a mass people's movement--in the streets, workplaces,
communities, campuses and high schools--to stop the coming
war.
"We call for civilians and soldiers alike to exercise their
political rights to speak out against an illegal war."
Emergency anti-war actions are also planned for Sept. 14-17
in Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and other
cities. For more information, visit the Web site
www.internationalanswer.org.
Nelson Mandela: 'We are appalled'
On Sept. 2, former South African President Nelson Mandela
denounced U.S. threats against Iraq, saying the White House was
"introducing chaos in international affairs, and we condemn
that in the strongest terms."
Mandela said: "We are really appalled by any country,
whether a superpower or a small country, that goes outside the
United Nations and attacks independent countries." (CNN.com,
Sept. 2)
The governments of Germany, France, Russia and China have
all publicly opposed the U.S. war plan. Washington's closest
ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has not taken a
position on the invasion plan, though he agreed with Bush that
the Iraqi government must be "replaced."
No members of the U.S.-led coalition that carried out the
1991 Gulf War have signed on for Bush's adventure. All fear
that a U.S. invasion of Iraq, lacking UN cover or any credible
pretext, could ignite a new wave of struggle among the
oppressed peoples of the Middle East and popular anti-war
movements in the U.S. and Europe, like during the Vietnam
War.
European leaders soon to face re-election, like Germany's
Gerhard Schroeder, are also motivated by simple vote-grabbing
arithmetic. Polls in Germany, France and Britain have
consistently shown public opposition to a new war at 70 percent
or more, and hostility toward any official seen acting as
Bush's stooge.
Syria and Iran, both longtime opponents of Iraq's
government, joined in condemning the Bush plan, knowing they
could be next on Washington's hit list. So have pro-U.S.
regimes like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.
Even Kuwait, the tiny, U.S.-dependent monarchy whose
invasion by Iraq was the pretext for the Gulf War, doesn't
support the White House plan.
Weapons inspections the solution?
Many U.S. allies are using the issue of weapons inspections
to soften their opposition and not appear too out of step with
Washington.
Rather than forthrightly defending Iraq's right to
sovereignty and self-defense, they are pressuring Baghdad to
accept the return of UN weapons inspectors, hoping that this
will somehow make Bush's invasion scheme unworkable.
Secretary of State Colin Powell has also taken up this
position. Powell made his opposition to the Bush invasion
scheme public during an interview with the British Broadcasting
Corporation Sept. 1. Powell said that Bush has to make his
justifications clear to Congress and the world. "A debate is
needed ... so that everybody can make a judgment about
this.
"As a first step, let's see what the inspectors find, send
them back in."
For months Bush and his closest associates have tried to
build a case for invading Iraq. Their main ploy was to claim
that Iraq was developing "weapons of mass destruction."
But some UN weapons inspectors, who toured Iraqi facilities
throughout the 1990s, publicly refuted these claims, saying
that Iraq did not have such weapons or the capacity to build
them.
Former U.S. Marine Scott Ritter, who headed an inspection
team, even admitted that they were little more than spy
operations for Washington. Ritter said the inspectors fed
information on politically and militarily sensitive sites to
the CIA for use in bombing raids, like the 1998 U.S.-British
"Desert Fox" operation.
Since the U.S. withdrew the inspectors in preparation for
that assault, the Iraqi government has understandably refused
to let them back in.
Grasping for another justification, Cheney gave a
belligerent speech Aug. 26 claiming a "pre-emptive strike" was
necessary because Iraq might someday develop a nuclear weapon.
Cheney said further UN weapons inspections would serve no
purpose.
On Sept. 2, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said the
return of UN inspectors was "still under consideration" and
could happen, but only as part of a "comprehensive settlement"
that ends U.S.-backed sanctions, which have killed more than 1
million people since 1991, and the return of sovereignty over
Iraq's whole territory.
"If you want to find a solution, you have to find a solution
for all these matters, not only pick up one certain aspect of
it. We are ready to find such a solution," Aziz said after
meeting with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan at the World
Development Summit in Johannesburg Sept. 3.
Ruling class interests
The split between Powell and the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld group
isn't one of principle. Both serve the interests of U.S. big
business and want to see Iraq's independence crushed. Their
difference is over the most effective, least costly way to
achieve that common goal.
Bad press or misgivings by administration insiders won't
stop Bush from carrying out his war plans. He serves a much
stronger master--the interests of the profit-hungry U.S. ruling
class, which is determined to secure its domination over the
oil-rich Middle East.
And while they fear the consequences of rash U.S. action,
none of the other capitalist governments around the world can
be counted on to mount a serious resistance to the war drive.
Unfortunately, this is also true of the current ruling group in
China, the only socialist country on the UN Security
Council.
These governments are more interested in staying on the
empire's good side than in standing up for international law or
Iraqi sovereignty. None of them wants to risk being the next
target of Pentagon aggression.
The United Nations organization cannot be relied on either.
Despite the hopes of the many oppressed countries that sit in
the General Assembly, the UN has historically served as a cover
for U.S. imperialist adventures, from the Korean War to the
Gulf War, though the Bush crew would now like to bypass it
altogether.
The only thing that can prevent a war--the only thing that
will give the Bush regime and its corporate masters pause--is
the threat of social upheaval and mass resistance at home and
abroad.
Fortunately, there is fertile ground for building a mass
anti-war movement here: anger over the deepening economic
crisis of poor and working people, outrage at attacks on civil
rights, growing apprehension at the consequences of Bush's "war
time all the time" policy.
A Time Magazine/CNN poll released Sept. 1 showed that
support for sending U.S. troops to overthrow the Iraqi
government had fallen from 73 percent last December to just 51
percent in August. A Los Angeles Times poll found that 64
percent--less than two-thirds--would back a war, even in the
current wave of media-sponsored jingoism marking the 9/11
anniversary.
Some 49 percent of those polled by Time/CNN agreed that a
war in Iraq would be "long and costly."
These figures show a much greater skepticism and opposition
to war than existed in the early years of the Vietnam War, and
they are shifting further away from Bush all the time.
Building for Oct. 26 in Washington can be a big step toward
forging a movement that can stop the war.
Reprinted from the Sept. 12, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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