March 2004  

MARCH 15 – It’s the first anniversary of the United States’ imperialist war on Iraq, and the one-year mark in the ongoing colonial occupation of the pivotal Near Eastern country. The pretexts for the war put forward by U.S. president George Bush and his sidekick, British prime minister Tony Blair – supposed stockpiles of “weapons of mass destruction,” alleged ties with “Al Qaeda” terrorists – have long since been revealed as blatant lies. Of course, it was obvious at the time that if the Pentagon and CIA seriously thought that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had atomic, biological or chemical weapons the U.S. would have hesitated a long time before invading. Instead, each new leaked document and memoir from a former government official confirms that the Bush gang was intent on seizing Iraq from the moment they seized the White House. As for “Al Qaeda,” the Islamic fundamentalists’ antipathy toward the erstwhile secular nationalist Hussein was well-known. 

The Internationalist Group exposed “The Great Chemical Weapons Hoax – Pretext for Imperialist War” in a May 2003 pamphlet. But while the vast majority of the left adopted the language of liberal “doves,” calling to “bring the troops home” while the liberals declared “peace is patriotic” on red-white-and-blue signs, the IG marched under red flags, calling “For Class War Against the Imperialist War.” As communists and defenders of the Bolshevik program of Lenin and Trotsky, we didn’t just oppose this war but the whole imperialist system. We stand on the side of the semicolonial countries under attack and seek to organize working-class action against the imperialist war machine. Our banners proclaimed “Defeat U.S. Imperialism, Defend Iraq!” as we campaigned for workers’ strikes against the war and for transport workers to refuse to handle war materiel. And while reformist pseudo-socialists declared this to be “Bush’s war,” fomenting dangerous illusions in the Democrats, we called to build a revolutionary workers party. 

Washington’s fallback excuse, that the invasion was justified because Hussein was a dictator and butcher of minorities and the U.S. was bringing “democracy” to the Near East, is just as threadbare. After killing between 10,000 and 15,000 Iraqis, and perhaps more, the imperialist occupation forces in Iraq number well over 100,000 and are increasing. Attempts to cobble together a constitution and form a government to which the “Coalition Provisional Authority” can hand over “sovereignty” by June 30 are nothing but a game of smoke and mirrors. The Shiite clerics vote for the piece of paper vowing to “amend” it to establish a unitary Islamic republic the first chance they get; the Kurds vote for it as long as they can keep their U.S.-armed pesh merga militias; and the Sunnis seethe at being relegated to political oblivion. The reality is that the U.S./U.K. colonialists are preparing to stay a long time, as evidenced by the permanent military bases being built by Bechtel and Halliburton. 

Last year millions marched in the streets of Europe and the United States in some of the largest antiwar demonstrations ever, but it didn’t stop or even slow down the imperialist juggernaut. The U.S.’ imperialist allies/rivals put on a show of opposition in hopes of getting in on the spoils, to no avail. Washington was running the show, period – which was the central point of the war in the first place, to cement U.S. world hegemony by controlling the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Protests decreased in size, except when Bush showed up in person in London last November. But the war wouldn’t go away as Iraqi resistance continued to stymie the conquerors. The Pentagon may not count the Iraqi dead, but the listing of U.S. soldiers killed has become a daily column in the papers, while the U.S.’ Iraqi stooges are afraid of being executed for their criminal collaboration. Opposition to the Iraq war and occupation has not only continued but increased, because the U.S. is not winning but losing the war of attrition. 

For the last several months opposition to the war has been channeled into the shell game of bourgeois politics as the media have focused on the Democratic Party primary elections. After the initial success of former Vermont governor Howard Dean in attracting young volunteers and millions of dollars via the Internet, all of the candidates feigned an antiwar stance. Yet the virtual nominee, Massachusetts senator John Kerry, a “war hero” who got medals for shooting up villagers along the river banks of Vietnam, voted for the Iraq war, as did the number 2 candidate, North Carolina senator John Edwards, and neither propose to withdraw U.S. troops if elected. Nor, for that matter, did Dean, who told the New York Times in an interview that U.S. withdrawal was impossible. And Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich called for 100,000 “United Nations” troops to occupy Iraq – in other words, for U.S. soldiers to put on blue U.N. “peacekeeper” helmets. 

Democrat John Kerry wraps himself in the flag. Twin parties of American capitalism vow to “stay the course” in Iraq, Afghanistan. For workers’ strikes against imperialist war! Drive out the colonial occupiers!
(Photo: Angel Franco/New York Times)

Now that the primaries are essentially over, the liberals are worried that antiwar youth  disappointed with the outcome will drift away from the safe channels of bourgeois politics. “Come Back, Little Deaniacs” headlined a New York Times (1 February) editorial. To bring them back, the annual spring peace demonstration is being held on March 20. The usual empty pacifist rhetoric will be spouted from the platforms while police pen demonstrators up behind metal barricades. One significant development is that an important sector of the labor movement, locals of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), will be shutting down a number of West Coast ports, including San Francisco-Oakland and Portland, demanding: stop the war, end the occupation, withdraw the troops. Stopping work for one shift is only a token of labor’s power, and coming today, a year late, it is essentially a demonstration rather than a real attempt to block the invasion. Nevertheless, the fact that for the first time in decades industrial action is being taken in the United States against an imperialist war is an important development that revolutionaries should make use of to fight for all-out workers action to defeat the bosses’ war.

The union bureaucrats are worried that if Bush wins the election they will really be under the gun, so they have pledged $44 million to the Democrats. They are pushing for a protectionist platform to “save American jobs.” Many others are worried that Dr. Strangelove is already in the White House (or the vice president’s office in Blair House). Yet the stark reality is that both the Democrats and Republicans are parties of imperialist war, unemployment and racism. The Democrats unleashed World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Vietnam War, the first war on Afghanistan and two wars on Yugoslavia. The Democrats and Dixiecrats maintained Jim Crow segregation in the South for decades, and are presiding over the resegregation of public schools today. Putting up trade barriers will be used to foster interimperialist trade war, as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs did in the 1930s, paving the way to the second imperialist world conflagration. The Green Party and Ralph Nader’s candidacy will only serve as sucker bait to draw the gullible into the dead end of bourgeois politics.

It is necessary to fight on March 20 and beyond for a revolutionary class program, for solid working-class action against the war, and to begin to forge an internationalist workers party that can fight all the imperialist warmongers and strikebreakers by realizing the slogan put forward over 150 years ago by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the World Unite!” n