Mobilize against war and racism

George W. Bush did it again. Thirty-one months ago it was “mission accomplished.” On Nov. 30 it was “we will win.” But what he is really promising is more years of more war in Iraq, more death and suffering for Iraqis, more killed and wounded GIs and more funds diverted to the military-industrial complex.

In the first of a series of public speeches aimed at winning support for the Iraq quagmire, Bush spoke at the Naval Academy in the morning before applauding aspiring officers. Since only 37 percent of the people say they support his Iraq policy and his presidency, the Naval Academy was a safe place to start.

The president’s talk included a stab at a more sophisticated understanding of his Iraqi enemies, calling them “a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists.” But his explanation left out the largest group: the ordinary Iraqis who, outraged by brutal U.S.-British rule, have joined forces, whatever their previous loyalties, to defeat the imperialist occupation.

Bush refused to discuss any serious plans for withdrawal of troops. He instead spoke in great detail about what some call “Iraqization”—the use of puppet Iraqi forces to fight the war in order to quell anger about continued U.S. troop deaths. This strategy didn’t work in Vietnam, when it was called “Vietnam ization,” and can be expected to fail in Iraq too, but only after causing great suffering.

Bush seemed unaware of the irony when he said the “Iraqi people will determine the destiny of their country ... despite the costs, the pain and the danger.” With these words, Bush inadvertently explained to all why the resistance in Iraq cannot and will not cease until every last U.S. troop is removed from Iraqi soil, and until the neocolonialist plans of Washington for the entire Middle East are rejected in full.

Bush told his Navy audience they would be engaged in a war in “the streets of Western cities.” He didn’t explain how he waged that war against poor African American people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, when he sent battle-hardened troops there in September with orders to shoot to kill.

Bush relied on the same old Big Lies to justify the war. He answered criticism within Congress over the war policy with a statement that the war was still on, and his regime would follow that policy to the end.

The Democratic Party leaders have given no evidence that they will confront Bush’s arrogance with a determined effort to push the U.S. war train off the tracks.

It is exactly for this reason that the independent anti-imperialist movement in the United States must do everything it can to support the struggle for self-determination of the people of Iraq, the Middle East and throughout the world—including the oppressed within the United States—fighting valiantly to rid themselves of oppression and occupation.