AS HORRORS OF WAR MULTIPLY
Global protests April 12
World demands regime change in Washington
By Deirdre Griswold
With the horrific images of war burning into their
consciousness every day, people around the world are now
gearing up for April 12--the next globally coordinated wave of
demonstrations aimed at halting the imperialist blitzkrieg
against the people of Iraq that has been unleashed by the
governments of the U.S. and Britain.
To the slogan "Stop the war on Iraq," they are now adding,
"Bring the troops home now."
In the United States, the ANSWER coalition is organizing
mass protests in Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
ANSWER brought half a million people to the capital and 200,000
to the streets of San Francisco on Jan. 18 to try to stop the
war before it started.
The Stop the War Coalition UK, which turned out more than a
million people in London on Feb. 15, is calling its next
national action on April 12. Huge protests have also been
announced for that day in other countries in Europe, Latin
America and Asia. (See internationalanswer.org for latest
details.)
Opposition to this war, even before the first bomb was
dropped, has been unprecedented. Since January, hundreds of
thousands have been demonstrating every few weeks in the United
States alone. On Feb. 15, some 15 million people marched all
over the world.
Once the war started on March 19, the protests escalated to
mass resistance in San Francisco, where ANSWER and several
other groups united to shut the city down on the weekend of
March 22-23.
A mass march in New York on March 22 called by United for
Peace and Justice brought out a quarter million people.
In cities and towns across the country, there have been
hundreds of actions, including students walking out of school,
marches, teach-ins and disruptions. Now, some families of
wounded and dead soldiers are speaking out against the war.
And, as stiff Iraqi resistance has led the Pentagon to announce
it will send another 100,000 troops to Iraq, young recruits who
joined the military on the promise of education and job skills
are starting to refuse to participate in this unprovoked
assault, saying they were lied to about the war.
In less than two weeks of combat, the realities on the
ground have demolished every single argument put forth by
members of the Bush administration to justify their criminal
invasion of Iraq.
Those who listened to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
expected a short war in which the Iraqi people would welcome
the U.S. and British as "liberators." They never dreamed that
the Iraqis, despite their enormous disadvantage in weaponry,
would put up such a heroic resistance against the invasion.
The Bush administration had a public relations strategy to
gain popular acceptance of the war: it was against one person,
Saddam Hussein. Getting rid of him would be easy. But the Iraqi
people have shown with their resistance that they know better.
This war is against them and against the independence that they
won from British colonialism back in the 1950s.
As they attack tanks and helicopters with nothing but small
arms and grenades, they are telling the world that they would
rather die than go back to colonial slavery. They built a
prosperous country--the most egalitarian in the Middle
East--with their oil revenues. They will not let U.S. and
British oil companies take control of their resources
again.
In these first weeks of war, the realities on the ground
have totally contradicted the press briefings in Washington.
The lies, hypocrisy and imperial arrogance of the architects of
this war, added to daily accounts of civilian casualties that
cannot be suppressed, even with Pentagon censorship and a
captive media, are filling the anti-war movement with renewed
determination and energy.
Not only elementary and high school youth, but veterans of
the last Gulf War can be found at every anti-war demonstration.
They know first-hand how this administration--which has just
cut veterans' benefits--used them and then abused them when
they returned home sick and disillusioned.
The young troops now fighting in Iraq have been deliberately
kept in the dark about the crass motives for this war, which is
being driven by the imperial ambitions of the super-rich ruling
class in both the U.S. and Britain.
The hundreds of thousands who were told they must risk their
lives to "liberate" Iraq are becoming increasingly
bewildered--and many are angry. The reasons given for sending
them into combat have proven to be completely false.
There is no connection between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq.
Iraqis are not welcoming a U.S.-imposed regime. And while U.S.
bombs and missiles are massively destroying the country, no
"weapons of mass destruction" have been found. The U.S. is now
trying desperately to produce such weapons--needed to justify
the carnage--by creating its own "weapons inspectors" in total
disregard of the United Nations.
Now the troops are caught up in a Vietnam-type situation.
They are told their survival depends on killing civilians
because they could be combatants "in disguise." This merely
compounds the totally criminal character of this war. Civilian
deaths are growing into the thousands as Baghdad and other
cities are bombed night and day. While on the one hand the U.S.
government claims it has the support of the Iraqi people, its
troops are so afraid of the people that they are firing on
anyone they encounter--including a car packed with 15 women and
children trying to flee Najaf. At least 10 in the car were
killed.
Planes streaking across the country are bombing schools and
hospitals, even in little towns, according to a group of U.S.
peace activists who drove from Baghdad to Jordan on March 29,
encountering devastation along the way. (Associated Press,
March 31)
The organizers now filling buses to Washington for April 12
are propelled by another kind of crisis, too--the continued
assault on the workers and poor here at home. At a time when
Bush is demanding sacrifice from U.S. workers in uniform, and
sacrifice from working-class taxpayers to pay the huge cost of
this war, it is reported that top executive earnings went up by
15 percent last year, while wage workers saw only a 3 percent
gain. In other words, the gap between the super-rich and the
rest of us continues to grow, even with the huge stock market
losses.
Jeffrey Barbakow of Tenet Healthcare came away with the
biggest capitalist jackpot: $188 million for 2002. Meanwhile,
45 million people in the U.S. can't afford any health care at
all.
Bill Frist, now the Senate Majority Leader and a prime
backer of Bush's war, is linked to Tenet and the
health-for-profit industry through both his father and
brother.
That is why a sea change is taking place in organized labor
in the U.S., as rank-and-file workers demand that their unions
take a stand against this war and against the domestic
repression and anti-labor measures that go along with the
policy of endless aggression against the world.
At ANSWER's last rally in Washington, on March 15, the head
of the Washington Metro Labor Council AFL-CIO, Josh Williams,
spoke out strongly against this war, as did Gene Bruskin of
U.S. Labor Against the War.
Workers, students, veterans, civil rights leaders,
lesbian/gay/bi/trans activists, feminists, religious peace
activists--and members of the many anti-imperialist groups that
make up the ANSWER coalition steering committee--will join with
the world on April 12 in solidarity with the Iraqi people and
their struggle to expel the invading forces from their
homeland--which translates here into bringing the troops
home.
Reprinted from the April 10, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
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