|
Sure
enough, the Iraq War is over! At least, that’s the word from the
corporate media. Eighty-five percent of U.S. bases and “outposts” in Iraq were slated to be closed as
of June 30, according to U.S. military officials. U.S. forces were said to be
withdrawing from Iraq’s cities, “under cover of
night,” reported The New York Times.
In
Orwellian double-speak, the U.S. puppet government of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has declared a “great victory” comparable to
the 1920 Iraqi rebellion against British troops, a “repulsion of
foreign occupiers” no less! The cynical June 26 Times “news”
article could not help but observe that “the Americans are going along
with it, symbolically and substantively.”
Maliki, desperate to demonstrate his independence from U.S. imperialism, declared June
30 a national holiday. He ordered U.S. troops to disappear, like
“invisible genies,” according to Ali al-Adeep,
a top leader of Maliki’s Dawa
Party, but only for a few days!
Meanwhile,
bomb attacks killed many civilians, mainly Shiites. Hundreds were
killed in late June; many more were wounded. Some residents of Sadr City charged that the Iraqi
government had aided the bombings, though Sunni communities, American military, and Iraqi security forces also suffered
losses.
Undoubtedly,
and without Maliki’s permission, Shiite
militants will respond with the formation of their own militias. Few
believe that the U.S.-trained and backed security forces have the
capacity to quell either the mass hatred of the still present U.S. occupation forces or the
internecine and U.S.-fueled rivalries among Iraqi groups.
U.S. helicopters continue to
pockmark the Iraqi skies, operating out of U.S. bases in Baghdad and elsewhere. They and
their bases have been excluded from the “withdrawal” agreements by
virtue of a re-drafting of the city’s borders and in recognition that
the presence of a U.S.-led rapid and deadly military response was
absolutely essential.
Some
130,000 U.S. combat troops remain in Iraq, re-classified as
non-combatants and trainers, though armed to the teeth. They have been
momentarily removed from public view but remain entrenched in massively
fortified and armed bases and airfields replete with the most modern
weapons of mass destruction. They will remain in Iraq as long as necessary to
assure the exploitation of the nation’s resources and otherwise serve U.S. interests in the region.
Maliki insists, “We will not ask [the U.S.] to intervene in combat
operations related to maintaining public order.” But “public order,” a
term implying a police operation, is far from what U.S. officials in
Iraq have in mind. Deadly force levels are still a requirement for Iraq
“stability.” Indeed, the recent wave of bombings could well provide yet
another pretext, along with the original claims of “Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction and “collaboration with the Taliban in the 9/11
bombings,” to justify the continuation of the occupation force.
In
addition, 150,000 or more U.S.-paid American mercenaries of every
variety continue their deadly deeds unimpeded, the largest privatized
army in U.S. history. Last month’s
bipartisan Congressional “supplementary” appropriation of almost $100
billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars stands in sharp
contrast to all assertions that stability and victory for the U.S. and its puppets is at hand.
American
imperialism faces an insoluble dilemma in Iraq. It is hated by the vast
majority of the population and the world’s people for its
near-genocidal super-power interventions (1.5 million have already been
murdered since the first U.S. Persian Gulf War in 1991). And at the
same time, enmeshed in the greatest U.S. and world economic crisis of
the capitalist order since the Great Depression 80 years ago and
challenged by its international capitalist competitors for access to
and domination of the world’s markets and resources, it has no exit
strategy from Iraq or Afghanistan.
The
U.S. is driven by the nature of its exploitative system to ever
expanding wars and long-term occupations—today in Pakistan, where its
dependent allies are threatened by their own peoples, and perhaps
tomorrow in Iran, where the insurgent mass movement threatens to break
out of the framework of clerical capitalist reaction and chart a new
course independent of U.S. and world imperialist domination.
Indeed,
the rise of the Iranian masses and the ongoing discrediting of all of
the pre-selected candidates in the recent rigged elections pose a greater
threat to U.S. imperialism than either of
the Ahmadinejad or Moussavi
pro-capitalist camps. Nevertheless, the Obama
administration, initially understanding that U.S. threats against Iran
or advice to its government regarding its conduct largely falls on deaf
ears, was cautious in its approach, referencing Obama’s rhetorical
and deceptive Cairo speech as its new and “humane” guidepost.
The
Iranian people have not forgotten the 1953 U.S.-sponsored coup that
removed the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh
government nor the U.S.-financed 10-year war waged against Iran by Iraq, when the latter was under
the tutelage of the U.S. government. Two million
Iranians and Iraqis died in that war.
U.S. officials are also mindful
that on June 29 six of Iraq’s largest oil field were up
for auction to the world’s oil giants. Iraq sits on the world’s third
largest oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia and Iran. Backed by the U.S.
occupiers, there is little doubt that U.S. oil corporations will have
the inside track against its imperialist competitors. Few have
forgotten that among the first acts of the U.S. “victors” in 2003 was the
tearing up of the oil contacts signed by the Saddam Hussein government
with U.S. rivals in France, Russia, and elsewhere.
National Assembly conference
in Pittsburgh
The
second national conference of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and
Afghanistan Wars and Occupations (National Assembly) comes at a
propitious time, when the notion that the Obama
administration would fulfill its promise of “change”
is beginning to crumble against the reality of the policies implemented
under his reign. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are now Obama’s wars, have been extended to Pakistan, and new threats of
aggression and war have been added to the mix with Obama’s
belligerent stance toward Iran and North Korea.
The
recent military coup in Honduras, with that nation’s
newly-elected president forced into exile, cannot be understood without
factoring in the role of the U.S. military. U.S. military bases in Honduras have long been used as a
launching point for U.S.-sponsored wars and interventions. The Honduran
military has been historically armed, financed, and trained by the United States.
The
National Assembly’s July 10-12 conference in Pittsburgh is expected to draw over
200 leading antiwar activists from cities across the country. An
ambitious nine-point Action Proposal has been prepared by the
Assembly’s Coordinating Body (CB) for the consideration of all
attendees. One-person-one-vote will be the operative decision-making
principle. Everyone opposed to U.S. wars and occupations is
welcome.
The
strategic and political goals of the National Assembly are a united and
independent antiwar movement focused on mass mobilizations and demanding
the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The National Assembly also
calls for an end to U.S. support to the Israeli
occupation of Palestine and support to the right of
self-determination of all oppressed peoples and nations.
Tens
of thousands of conference brochures have been distributed nationally
to outline the conference’s objectives and to solicit additional Action
Proposals for the consideration of the Pittsburgh conference. Three lengthy plenary
sessions are scheduled to discuss and debate all proposals and
amendments presented to the conference, which will also elect a new
National Assembly leadership to help implement the network’s decisions.
The
Coordinating Body’s Action Proposal centers on a call for nationally
coordinated local and regional antiwar actions on Oct. 17, a month that
includes the dates of the beginning of the U.S. wars against Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the 40th
anniversary of the massive antiwar mobilizations initiated by the
Vietnam Moratorium in 1969. Leaders of the present Iraq Moratorium
organization have joined with the National Assembly in calling for the
Oct. 17 mobilization.
The
CB’s Action Proposal also includes the organization of a National
Assembly “Out Now!” contingent in the Sept. 24-25 protests at the third
G-20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh. Other prominent parts of
the Action Proposal that will be discussed and debated include a
coordinated week of student protests, a national speaking tour of
prominent antiwar figures, the establishment of a Working Committee to
“ensure that the antiwar movement stands in solidarity with the people
of Palestine and integrates the issue of Palestine in the broader
antiwar struggle,” and the continuation of National Assembly efforts
“to engage all organizations and constituencies … in nationally
coordinated mass demonstrations in selected sites, including
Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco in the spring of 2010,
the seventh year of the U.S. war on Iraq.”
The
Pittsburgh conference includes two
important panel discussions and rallies where leading activists from
many antiwar and social justice organizations are slated to present
their views. Central leaders of the ANSWER Coalition and United for
Peace and Justice will be active participants, along with
representatives of Palestinian, Iraqi, and Iranian groups and
individuals organizing against Washington’s wars and threats of war.
Eighteen
workshops covering a broad range of issues have been confirmed. In
light of ongoing U.S. threats against Iran and developments in that
country, the Iran workshop is expected to
attract a large audience with a diverse range of opinions. The National
Assembly has adopted a position of unconditional support to the fight
of self-determination for the Iranian people and for “U.S. Hands Off
Iran!”
Conference
participants include leading labor and social activists, from the
president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, two leaders of the recent
successful general strike in Guadeloupe, and leading social
activists from Canada.
The
July 10-12 conference is another important effort organized by the
National Assembly aimed at re-building a national antiwar movement
capable of uniting around clear “Out Now!” political demands in
coordinated and massive national antiwar protests. These are a
pre-condition for the organization of the kind of struggle necessary to
halt present and future U.S. wars and re-order the
nation’s priorities in the interests of working people and their
allies.
All
Out for Pittsburgh, July 10-12! For further
information, e-mail: natassembly@aol.com
or check the National Assembly’s website at natassembly.org.
Obama’s wars
National
Assembly organizers have taken note of the fact that Obama’s large Democratic Party majority turned a
blind eye to even a pretense of winding down the Afghanistan war when the House of
Representatives in late June overwhelming rejected the recent McGovern
amendment that posed so-called timelines for a U.S. withdrawal.
The
Assembly demands the unconditional and immediate withdrawal of all U.S.
troops, mercenaries, contractors and the dismantling of all U.S. bases,
and has always rejected such “timelines” and other schemes to defuse
antiwar sentiment and channel the movement into the framework of the
two-party corporate system.
Obama’s pre-election promise that Afghanistan was the real place to fight
a war to “end terrorism” has become a bitter reality. It is a signal
that more, not less, wars are to be expected
from his administration.
Similarly,
the promise of a serious health-care reform has been replaced with yet
another bill to tax working people to the hilt while gifting the
health-care industrialists with proposals for mandatory coverage at
working people’s expense. Torture under another name remains government
policy while the previous administration’s torturers, from government
officials to the executioners themselves, have been granted immunity
from prosecution.
Trillions
have been allotted to the banks and related ruling-class institutions,
additional trillions to the military while working people increasingly
suffer the effects of the capitalist crisis to a greater extent than at
any time in the modern era.
The
illusion that the Obama administration has
signaled a significant shift away from Bush-era brutalities is slowly
but steadily fading. That Obama has no choice
but to represent the same corporate interests as his predecessor is a
reality that is increasingly penetrating the consciousness of antiwar
and social movement activists.
It
is only a matter of time until the great expectations that millions had
for the Obama White House, now steadily
diminishing, will give way to a resumption of powerful mass movements
that have the capacity to effectively challenge the U.S. corporate warmakers.
|