Saturday, March 19th, 2005 We are facing the second anniversary of the beginning of the criminal Iraq war, March 19th, 2003. A war that has killed over 1500 American soldiers, tens of thousands of Iraqis, and horribly wounded hundreds of thousands more --- life and soul destroying wounds. The war was justified by the United States government on the basis of the Iraqi government supposedly possessing "weapons of mass destruction" and "probably" having something to do with the attacks of September 11th, 2001. All this has been proven to be a pack of lies, pure and simple. The truth is that 9/11 became a convenient excuse for the US rulers to do exactly what they wanted to do anyway -- intimidate and dominate the world, politically, militarily and economically if possible. 9/11 made George Bush's day, and there have been many questions raised, even in bourgeois circles, about just how easily the "terrorists" of 9/11 got through US security and intelligence networks. The corporate ruling class tells us that "we" are under threat from a massive worldwide "terrorist" network, and they claim that we must destroy it or be destroyed in order to make us "safe". They insist that the United States must act in a pre-emptive, first strike way to defeat, control and shape other nations and peoples who are "different" from "us". In reality, we are not safe from THEM. When we believe what the corporate ruling class tells us, we are not safe from ourselves. The so-called "international terrorist threat" is the bogeyman of today, just as the "international communist conspiracy" was up until 14 years ago or so. Imperialism desperately needs monsters, quasi real or totally imagined, to justify its aggressive actions and make them seem "heroic". The fact is that many of the "terrorists" and "rogue regimes"
of today (Bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, etc.) were the US
allies, servants and henchmen of yesterday. They were trained and
given strength and sometimes put into political power by the US These terrorists/former servants are a problem for the US rulers today because they eventually came to hate the US and now, we are told, threaten to butcher Americans instead of peasants and workers in other lands for US corporate power. Still others around the world are falsely called "terrorists" simply because they dare to take up arms to overthrow oppressive regimes, regimes that are the current allies and proxies of the US ruling class. The same is true for the current puppet regime in Iraq. It is a creation of US imperial interests, pure and simple. The Iraqi people have a right to resist this occupation regime, staged election or no staged election, and no amount of calling resistance fighters "terrorists" will change the truth. It is all about money, of course. The countries now being attacked and threatened by US imperialism either directly possess or can provide access to vast resources, mostly oil; or they just refuse to roll over and play dead and allow multi-national corporations to exploit and oppress their people (Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, etc.). This is a terrible sin to the imperial corporate elite! The US is currently the central imperialist power in the world, and the only super-power. With a combination of economic bullying and many military interventions and threats of same, the United States has become the major player and decision maker of 21st century capitalist imperialism. Its military dwarfs all other national militaries combined, and its direct pressure covers the globe. Under the guise of defending and extending "democracy" and "freedom" the United States uses its military might to expand its aggressive hold on humanity and to force open all doors that lead to more power and wealth for the US imperial ruling class. "Freedom" to them means the freedom of capital investment to rape and rob the resources and labor power of other nations. Vast quantities of wealth and resources are funneled into the US military (over 400 billion dollars a year, with tens of billions more for ongoing wars!) while social programs and cities suffer. A system of high unemployment, low minimum wage, high college tuition and expensive health care cause too many American youths to join the military. Yet some say that it is "un-American" to criticize this system and to talk to American youth about not going in, or to suggest that the United States is an empire Hell bent on conquest. The Unites States ruling class does not have the right to impose its greed centered, power hungry will on the rest of the human race ! It does not have the right to use the American people to carry out its plunder! The Earth and the Earth's resources are not for the US elite to exploit and control! We pledge to continue to build the international anti-war movement and to fight to make it and keep it independent of capitalist political domination or influence! We will push within the movement for a continuing orientation toward mass organizing and mobilization and against any attempt to intimidate it or influence it toward capitalist parties or watered down demands like "Negotiations" or "US out, UN in". We call upon and urge all other principled anti-war and working class, revolutionary, radical, genuinely progressive forces to do the same. Bring All The Troops Home Now must be the central and overarching demand! In addition, the Debs Tendency of the Socialist Party USA also demands:
Debs Tendency, Socialist party USA
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Debs Tendency, Socialist Party USA
E-Mail: debs-contact@debstendency.org
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