Once again, George W. Bush is beating the war drum in an attempt to whip up public support for his latest military bloodbath in Iraq. There’s just one inconvenient fact for Bush, though: Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has absolutely nothing to do with the tragic September 11th terrorist attacks. Not a single shred of credible evidence has been produced demonstrating links between Hussein’s regime and the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist networks.
Moreover, virtually every government in the world except for Britain’s oppose a US invasion of Iraq to topple the dictator Saddam Hussein, but the right wing ideologues in control of the US government don’t care. They want to invade anyway.
Bush’s original justification for a war was Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. Saddam’s regime, however, is only one of several repressive dictatorships attempting to develop biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Iraq’s capacity to deploy such weapons militarily is doubtful, and Saddam does not pose a strategic military threat to the US.
Washington and Baghdad are both maneuvering over weapons inspections. But it has become crystal clear that the US is not really interested in verifying Iraq’s actual military capacity. “What started out as an ultimatum – ‘let UN inspectors return or we are going to attack you’ – seems to have been streamlined: ‘we are going to attack you.'” (Financial Times, 8/20/02)
Even in the event that Saddam did possess such weapons, backing him into a corner by invading Iraq would actually increase the likelihood of him resorting to their use. What’s even more hypocritical is that the US government supported, armed and financed Saddam in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. The US government never objected to Iraq’s use of poison gas then, but rather looked the other way. Yesterday we were buddy, buddy. Today we are enemies!
Socialists have always opposed Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship. However, we place no confidence in Bush’s corporate administration to liberate the Iraqi people. For them, this is a war to settle an old score. Neither the Gulf War nor 10 years of brutal economic sanctions (which have done nothing but starve the Iraqi people) have been able to get rid of Saddam.
His holding onto power has been a major embarrassment for US imperialism. Saddam continues to remain a thorn in the side of Bush and his hawkish cronies who want to reassert US economic and political domination over the globe and the region.
Bush’s claims to be acting on behalf of ordinary Iraqis is nonsense. The US-sponsored sanctions on Iraq has killed over a million Iraqis to date. Now Bush is prepared to kill another estimated 10,000 Iraqi civilians to topple Saddam – three times the death toll of September 11th.
An attack on Iraq would not discourage further terrorist attacks on the US, but rather increase them. Another war in the Middle East will further destabilize the region and fuel anti-American sentiments, supplying terrorist organizations with more recruits.
Bush is trying to convince working class Americans, youth and the poor to accept being the latest casualties of his twisted foreign policy. It won’t be the sons or daughters of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, or any of the ruling elite that will be injured and killed, but American workers and youth. They are considering sending up to 250,000 troops into the region. This could mean hundreds, if not thousands of US troops could be killed.
And who will it be that pays for this war? This war will cost tens of billions of dollars. The previous war with Iraq cost $60 billion. We can expect this one to have a much higher price tag.
Just like the wars on Afghanistan and Vietnam, this war will likely be paid through raiding our Social Security funds and cutting education, healthcare and other social services.
With the economy heading back into recession and unemployment rising again, this money could be better used on a public works program to put the jobless back to work and to fund education.
The protests planned for the weekend of September 28 and 29 against the meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington DC will provide a perfect opportunity to also hold anti-war demonstration.
Organizing marches and rallies to coincide with the other protests against the IMF/WB would allow the anti-war and anti-globalization movements to link arms and numerically strengthen both movements.
Just like the April 20th demonstrations in DC, these protests can be a sounding board for hundreds of thousands to oppose Bush’s right-wing war agenda.