WORLD SAYS NO TO
WAR OF CONQUEST
People demand jobs, schools and health care--not racist
blitzkrieg
Workers World Party issued the following statement on the
outbreak of the U.S. attack on Iraq on March 19.
It should be clear to everyone by now. The U.S. government
has been clamoring for the disarmament of Iraq--which was
basically accomplished by the first Gulf War--so that its own
military, by far the most destructive in the world, could
attack and conquer a virtually defenseless nation one-tenth its
size.
Never has there been a more naked case of outright
aggression than this war. Even a United Nations that has
acquiesced for over 50 years in one U.S. military intervention
after another--starting with Korea and continuing through
Vietnam and scores of other wars and armed operations, large
and small--could not go along with this one.
If the UN has become "irrelevant," using Bush's word, it is
because this world body, which includes the governments of both
oppressor and oppressed nations, is incapable of indicting the
U.S. government for its flagrant crimes against peace and war
crimes in violation of the UN's own charter and all
international law.
In his speech on March 17 giving Iraq "final notice,"
President George W. Bush said he was attacking that country "to
enforce the just demands of the world." That alone showed that
the whole speech was based on outrageous lies. While
governments may be paralyzed under the pressure of the world's
economic and military superpower, never before have the people
of the world expressed their opposition to a war with such
fervor, and in such overwhelming numbers.
The billionaire-owned media corporations repeat Bush's lies
as the truth. And they will continue to do so. It is already
clear that U.S. special teams have been organized to produce
justification for this war of aggression by "finding" Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction. What the UN could not find in
years of inspections, the U.S. is sure to "find," one way or
another. Documents presented by the U.S. and Britain that
alleged Iraq tried to obtain uranium were exposed at the UN as
forgeries. But exposure of new pretexts is not likely in the
"fog of war," when territory has been taken and those disputing
the U.S. claims can be killed at the drop of a hat.
Knowing that Washington is exerting intense pressure on the
media to repeat its charges uncritically, so as to deliver some
semblance of public support for this unpopular war, it is
necessary that the world be totally skeptical of whatever
self-serving "revelations" are conveniently produced.
Bush has already declared that his troops are "liberators,"
not conquerors. A huge operation is underway to manufacture the
necessary images to convince a disbelieving world that the
Iraqis want to be invaded.
This war is not an aberration or the irrational act of one
leader. It has the backing of the most powerful ruling class in
the world, even though mass opposition has caused some in their
camp to fear the consequences. It represents a convergence of
the capture of political power by the "neo-conservatives"
around Bush with the uncontested military supremacy of the U.S.
since the collapse of the socialist bloc and the inability of
Big Money to turn around a growing worldwide capitalist
economic crisis, which is drying up markets and pitting global
corporations and imperialist ruling classes against each
other.
Many people who have believed in "the system" are stunned by
events that reveal a glaring disconnect between the political
establishment and the will of the people. Congress has not
responded in any way to their fervent appeals, other than to
hand over to the president its constitu tion ally mandated
authority to declare war.
As these momentous events move inexorably forward, there is
literally no debate in the Congress, and none demanded by the
leaders of the "opposition" party. Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle, a Democrat now positioning himself for the 2004
election, is trying to make his support for the war more
palatable to the people by wrist-slapping the Bush
administration, saying it didn't do a good enough job of
rounding up international support--for a brutal, criminal,
illegal assault on a nation already weakened by 12 years of
sanctions.
No one in the leadership of the two establishment political
parties dares mention the crass subject of oil and this
administration's incestuous relationship with companies like
Dick Cheney's Halliburton, which has already been promised
hefty contracts in rebuilding the oil industry in a
Pentagon-run post-war Iraq. And how could they? That would give
the whole game away--the political game that all senators know
so well, of speaking in the name of the people while defending
the interests of big capital, whose lobbyists pay them off
generously.
The war abroad is accompanied by a sharp escalation in the
war at home--a racist war of the billionaire class to intensify
its exploitation of the workers of this country.
It is not mere coincidence that United Air Lines chose March
17, the day of Bush's war speech, to file a formal request with
the bankruptcy court to dissolve its contracts with airline
workers, including pilots, flight attendants and
machinists.
This war, and those to follow as the Bush Doctrine of U.S.
domination is put into effect across the globe, will cost
working people here trillions of dollars, besides the lives and
limbs of unknown numbers of young soldiers. Who else will pay
for the aircraft carriers, fleets of fighter planes, and
deployments of hundreds of thousands of troops with high-tech
weapons of all kinds? The executives of Enron and Exxon/Mobil?
No, they will be trying to squeeze all they can get out of
wages, pensions and health coverage, while allowing social
services to wither as taxes are cut on the rich.
Coming on top of an already frightening economic decline,
the war is spurring on the bosses' offensive against the
unions, many of which are now standing up and challenging the
war and the domestic repression that goes with it.
Two world views
Two very different views of the world are emerging as this
crisis deepens.
The Bush view, the view promoted by the right-wingers who
dominate government and the media, is of a frightening future
where the U.S. is armed to the teeth, at any cost, and will
strike out at any time, because some among the billions of
people around the world who suffer unbearable conditions may
seek to retaliate on the country that has built this horrible
"new world order."
People in the rich imperialist countries should know that
the global banks and corporations have been destroying local
economies, leaving whole countries destitute, unable to provide
even clean water to their people, let alone health care,
education and jobs. Imperialist intervention cannot solve these
problems, it only makes them much worse.
All promises that war is waged to benefit the Iraqi people,
or the Afghans, or the Koreans are but lies told by would-be
conquerors. We don't have to guess what U.S.-style "democracy"
will be like. Just look at the oppression of the Palestinians
by "democratic," U.S.-financed Israel, or "democratic" Turkey's
bloody repression of the Kurds. A government installed in Iraq
on U.S. bayonets will be a puppet regime well trained in
providing heart-warming photo ops but subservient to the
demands of the U.S. oil corporations.
But there is another view of the world that has been gaining
ground in recent years and which many young people passionately
believe in. It is of a world where science and technology
become the property of the people and are used to bring
literacy, health, good food, a modern infrastructure based on
sustainable deve lopment, and a clean environment to the
billions on this planet.
Safety and security in such a world does not require
thousands of nuclear weapons, arsenals of chemical, biological
and "conventional" but deadly weapons like those possessed by
the Pentagon, or endless wars of aggression. Such a world can
be built on the solidarity and struggles of the working people
and all who have been oppressed by the capitalist system.
At this moment, the war on Iraq transcends all other issues.
As this ruling class brings the war home with ever greater
fury, it can expect that every domestic struggle will become an
anti-war struggle. The war machine can and must be defeated by
a mighty movement to bring the troops home. Money for jobs,
education and health care, not endless imperialist wars of
aggression!
Reprinted from the March 27, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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