Workers World Party Statement on War Crisis 3/19/03
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 constitutionally 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 development, 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!
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