|
A coordinated fall offensive to
"Bring the Troops Home Now!" is taking shape in cities across
the United States as the nation's antiwar organizations gear up for a
variety of Sept. 15-21 mobilizations in Washington, D.C., followed by
10 regional mass protests on Oct. 27.
For the first time since the
neocolonial war against the Iraqi people began in March 2003, a sense
of unity—although not formalized in specific agreements for joint
action—is emerging among broad layers of the often fractious and
divided U.S. antiwar movement.
The process of breaking down many of
the previous obstacles to building a united movement has been
facilitated by the deeply felt need to bridge the gap between the
growing majority opposition to the war and the movement's capacity to
translate this into massive protests that exceed all previous
efforts.
The Oct. 27 regional mobilizations
initiated by the United for Peace and Justice coalition (UFPJ) are
today enthusiastically supported or endorsed by virtually the entire
movement.
In San Francisco, the ANSWER coalition
(Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) has initiated an ad hoc Oct. 27
coalition that includes in its leadership and ranks top organizers of
UFPJ—a first for the movement. An important number of other organizations
and activists have also joined the San Francisco regional effort,
including six AFL-CIO Bay Area central labor councils, veterans
organizations, faith-based congregations, and a variety of social
justice, human rights, and socialist groups.
The San Francisco coalition functions
on the basis of open membership meetings based on one person/one vote
and majority decision-making, along with an open steering committee
based on one vote per organization. These more democratic forms are a
breakthrough for antiwar organizing in that they open the door to the
broader participation of the movement's ranks.
While UFPJ initiated the Boston Commons
march and rally planned for Oct. 27, a far broader coalition
representing individuals and organizations across the entire New
England region is emerging and operating on the basis of similar
democratic principles.
In Chicago, over 50 diverse
organizations have signed on as supporters of the ad hoc Oct. 27
Mobilization Committee. Activists have distributed many thousands of
flyers advertising the event, and expect bus caravans to come to
Chicago from throughout the Midwest—plus “peace trains” from St. Louis
and Detroit.
In short, the movement is showing signs
of expanding beyond its previous more limited organizational framework.
Oct. 27 actions are also set for Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia,
Seattle, and Salt Lake City, with others in the works.
The ANSWER-initiated Sept. 15 mass
demonstration in Washington, D.C., expected to draw activists from 100
cities, is similarly broadly endorsed and will kick off a week of
varied protests to pressure Congress to cut off all funding for the war
and to “Bring the Troops Home Now!”
Few in the antiwar movement, however,
expect the congressionally mandated September report on the war's
"progress," by the government's chief commander in Iraq, Gen.
David H. Petraeus, to recommend anything less than the full $200
billion for the war requested by the Bush administration. And even
fewer expect the bipartisan warmakers to reject a nickel of the
proposed funding allocation.
The Democratic Party majority
leadership has already signaled willingness to drop from its proposals
any specific dates for mandatory troop withdrawals. While most of the
10 Democratic presidential candidates, and several of the Republicans,
profess to differ with the Bush administration on the war, none have
demanded an immediate end to the war.
All predicate their proposals, fake
timetables notwithstanding, on the need for a U.S. victory in Iraq. All
are essentially committed to the permanent occupation of Iraq and the
exploitation of Iraq's oil reserves, the second largest in the
world.
If there are any threats emanating from
any quarter of Congress regarding cutting off support to the puppet
government headed by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, they are
coupled with complaints regarding his failure to quickly press through
the U.S.-authored accords to privatize Iraq's oil to effectively grant
the lion's share to American oil corporations.
It is here that al-Maliki has run into
resistance from elements of the Iraq ruling elite—not to mention
important protests from Iraq's organized and often persecuted oil
workers' union and other trade-union federations that have learned
first hand that their U.S. overseers have no intention of protecting
labor rights.
President Bush's Sept. 3, 2007,
top-secret escapade to the al-Asad Air Base, guarded by 10,000 U.S.
troops in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, was designed to hype the
lie that progress in stabilizing Iraq was underway. Iraq's puppet
government leaders were summoned to sing the same song.
Also present were some Sunni sheiks,
whose newly professed allegiance to the U.S. is posed as accounting for
the temporary decline in attacks by Iraqi insurgents in that region.
Credit for this "progress" is accorded by the corporate media
to Bush administration "diplomatic" skills—as opposed to
secret agreements to grant a cut of the oil booty to a few Sunni elites
whose command over their followers remains in doubt. Gen. Petraeus
himself warned that these "gains" might prove illusory.
Bush and Petraeus, like the Democrats,
are today packaging their message to include possible future troop
withdrawals, that would be contingent, they insist, on the continuing
progress of the U.S. military in transforming the present
non-functional Iraqi army into an adequate instrument to fight against
the Iraqi people.
No serious observers believe that this
is a realistic conception. But in the face of the rising resistance to
the war at home, including the first major steps in the development of
a mass movement of Iraq veterans opposing the war, bipartisan lip
service to troop withdrawals is a political necessity to placate rising
opposition to the war as well as to both capitalist parties as the 2008
elections approach.
The decision of the organizers of the
Sept. 15 Washington, D.C., demonstration to have Iraq vets lead the
protest is an indication of the deep opposition to the war in U.S.
society and in the armed forces.
President Bush's orchestrated Sept. 3
cheering welcome from a pre-selected group of U.S. soldiers stationed
in Iraq stands in sharp contrast to the standing ovation given to
Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila in a speech given to 4000 National
Guardsmen on Aug. 25 in San Juan. "The war in Iraq has fractured
the political will of the United States and the world," said
Acevedo. The speech, urging a U.S. withdrawal, was presented to
the non-partisan, 129th National Guard Association general
conference.
Meanwhile, Britain's Prime Minister
Gordon Brown, under increasing pressure from the antiwar movement
there, announced a troop reduction of 3000 from Basra City, the main
point of intervention in southeastern Iraq's Shiite-dominated oil-rich
region. Additional British troop withdrawals are expected as the
"coalition of the willing" disintegrates worldwide and the
U.S. is left as the sole occupier of a nation in the process of
destruction.
Two million Iraqis have already fled
the country. Another two million are internal refugees. An estimated
665,000 have been murdered and 3200 U.S. soldiers have died to defend a
policy that benefits only the billionaire few.
Yet the U.S. is losing the war in
Iraq—on the ground, in the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, with
respect to the views of the growing majority of the U.S. and the
world's population, and in regard to the U.S. soldiers
themselves.
Any sane effort to assess the central
reasons for the total U.S. failure in Iraq must begin with the simple
question, "How can it be that the world's greatest military power,
the most awesome in world history, facing an Iraqi resistance with no
visible army, no air force, few if any modern weapons, tanks, and communication
systems, cannot win in Iraq?"
The answer is obvious. The U.S.
government is viewed today (and for decades earlier) by the Iraqi
people as an imperialist invader, intent on converting Iraq to the
permanent status of a colonial entity.
Hated worldwide, the rulers of
America's declining capitalism see no alternative than to pursue the
war. The bipartisan ruling class, driven by the need to establish
political and economic hegemony in the Middle East to defend U.S.
corporate interests against their imperialist competitors, has every
intention of continuing the war regardless of the costs.
The capitalist warmakers are fighting
over the very resource, fossil fuel, that threatens the existence of
the human race. Yet the fight for oil continues with no rational plan
to either end the war or to stop the destruction of the world's
fundamental and life-sustaining ecosystems.
And now they have turned an eye toward
Iran. On Aug. 28, President Bush formally declared the government's
intentions: "I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to
confront Tehran's murderous activities," said Bush, as he
announced his administration's intent to designate the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity and therefore an official
target of the U.S. war machine.
The same President Bush who has been
programmed by his corporate masters to insist that the very
"government" that the U.S. established is legitimate,
chastised his installed Iraqi president for maintaining diplomatic
relations with Iran.
It is Iranian support to the Iraqi
terrorists, declares President Bush as well as Barak Obama and Hillary
Clinton, that is responsible for the U.S. woes in Iraq. This is the
language of yet another war.
Today, the U.S. antiwar movement stands
poised to take a giant step forward in mobilizing the critical forces
capable of presenting a real challenge to the deepening horror in Iraq
and to its extension to Iran and elsewhere.
To the extent that the antiwar movement
remains independent of both warmaking parties and focused on winning
and mobilizing the vast majority of the American people to fight to get
out of Iraq immediately, the war machine can be stopped in its tracks.
The impressive unity thus far achieved can lay the basis for an
ever-broadening and victorious movement.
But a warning is in order. To the extent that
this struggle becomes subordinated to supporting any of the
pre-programmed presidential candidates of capitalism’s twin parties,
the movement will have lost an historic opportunity to advance the
cause of all humanity.
Bring all the troops home now! No to
funding for any U.S. war! Money for human needs, not war! Defend civil
liberties for all! End the repression at home!
No to U.S. wars, threats of wars, and
occupations from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Iran to Palestine, from
Venezuela to Cuba!
|