As Iraqi resistance hardens
Hearings reveal U.S. war policy in disarray
By Deirdre Griswold
March 31--The Bush administration has been unable to contain
the political damage caused by the defection of its own former
security chief, Richard Clarke, and is in a delicate dance with
the 9/11 commission over the issue of what members of the
administration will testify before it and in what manner.
A deal appears to have been worked out in which the
commission will let President George W. Bush and Vice President
Dick Cheney appear together in a 4-hour secret session in
exchange for the White House allowing the commission to hear
public testimony under oath from Bush's national security
adviser, Condoleezza Rice.
Spencer Ackerman of the New Republic magazine wrote March 30
in its online edition: "The White House is, in effect, trading
a Rice appearance for a guarantee that the administration's two
leading men won't be dragged down with her. Which makes this a
reasonably good deal for the president and his team."
At issue are two questions: whether the administration
failed to respond to warnings from its intelligence agencies
that al-Qaeda was preparing a major attack on the United
States, and then, after the devastating attacks on the World
Trade Center and Pentagon, whether it used these events as a
pretext to activate a previously laid plan for a war against
Iraq, even though intelligence officials had told the White
House that Baghdad had nothing to do with 9/11.
The defection of Clarke, whose book "Against All Enemies"
quickly became a best-seller, follows that of former Treasury
Secretary Paul O'Neill, previously CEO of the huge Alcoa Corp.,
who also went public with similar revelations about the
preoccupation of the administration with Iraq.
It took these establishment figures over two years to break
with the Bush administration. They did not speak out when the
resolution giving Bush the power to attack Iraq was being voted
on in Congress. They were quiet when millions around the world
were demonstrating against the coming war.
Even now, the position of the entire capitalist political
opposition, including Sen. John Kerry, is that there must be
new leadership in Washington in order to strengthen the U.S.
"war on terror" and its efforts to set up regimes in both Iraq
and Afghanistan that would be friendly to Washington.
None of these critics are for abandoning U.S. imperialist
hegemony in the world and allowing people oppressed and
exploited by Western colonialism and imperialism to choose
their own leaders and control their own resources, territory
and social policy.
But why are they speaking out now? The shattering of
unanimity in this administration surely reflects the
persistent, unyielding resistance of the people in both Iraq
and Afghanistan to foreign occupation. This has changed the
equation and made it impossible for the Bush administration to
realize the neat plans it elaborated in the Bush Doctrine.
Two years ago, it was quite brazen about launching
"preemptive war" in order to achieve absolute control over the
strategic Middle East--plans so grandiose that they alarmed
even Washington's allies/rivals in Europe and elsewhere. But
U.S. efforts to set up puppet governments and police forces
loyal to imperialism in both Iraq and Afghanistan have met
sustained hostility and guerrilla warfare, despite the most
brutal repression.
Resistance continues unabated
The latest evidence of the strength of the resistance in
Iraq came on March 31. Five U.S. soldiers were killed west of
Falluja when a bomb exploded underneath their vehicle. In the
town itself, just 15 miles away, crowds are reported to have
shot and killed four U.S. civilian contractors and dragged
their bodies through the streets. Reports said the people
believed the four were CIA operatives, who often use a civilian
cover.
This event is reminiscent of the mass uprising in Somalia on
Oct. 3, 1993, after U.S. "Black Hawk" helicopters fired into a
crowded market place in Mogadishu. The armed people were able
to bring down several helicopters in the fierce battle that
followed. Some 18 U.S. troops were killed, including highly
trained and equipped Rangers. This event led the Clinton
administration to withdraw its troops from Somalia.
Clearly, there is intense hatred among a broad section of
the Iraqi people for those who have bombed, sanctioned, invaded
and destroyed their country. Their actions have exploded the
Bush administration's expectation that it could quickly subdue
Iraq and make its vast oil resources available for profitable
exploitation by U.S. corporations.
Within the United States, there is also a conscious and
strong opposition not just to this administration but to
aggression and empire. Within weeks after the 9/11 attacks,
20,000 people were marching in the streets of Washington
protesting the plans of the White House to use the disaster to
whip up anti-Arab racism and a war fever.
The coalition that formed at that time--Act Now to Stop War
& End Racism--went on to organize massive demonstrations
against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent
occupation of both countries, exposing them as a colonial
adventure motivated by the expansionist ambitions of powerful
sections of big business closely tied to the government. Bush
and Cheney in particular personify these links, as both are
deeply embroiled with the oil industry and the
military-industrial complex.
The anti-war movement in the U.S. and in most of the world
calls for the withdrawal of U.S. and British military forces
from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their influence is growing as
awareness spreads that these wars and occupations serve only
the interests of the predatory corporations.
Among the troops and their families, too, it is becoming
clearer that while the rich in government and industry call on
them to sacrifice in the name of patriotism, these conquests
abroad spur on capitalist globalization, which in turn drags
down wages here and eliminates the benefits won over decades of
workers' struggles.
The 9/11 commission will not be asking Bush, Cheney or Rice
questions about any of this. It is narrowly focused on how to
restore the credibility of the institutions that have
historically served the interests of U.S. imperialism but have
been damaged by an administration that has vastly
over-estimated its reach and wound up in a quagmire.
It is up to the independent anti-war and anti-imperialist
movement to expose the real issues and organize the struggle
against the global exploiters, who have made the world such a
dangerous place by trying to run roughshod over everyone in
their way.
Reprinted from the April 8, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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