Iraq

One year on - Kick out the Warmongers

www.socialistworld.net, 22/03/2004
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI

“Your war – our dead”, “Aznar, your delusions of grandeur have led to this” chanted crowds on the streets of Spain last weekend, as the mass outpouring of grief and rage at the Thursday’s horrendous bombings became intertwined with anger at the government. Another common chant was “200 dead, over 1,000 injured and 34.5 million Spanish voters, misinformed, lied to”. In total eleven million people, a quarter of the population, took to the streets of Spain.

Kick out the Warmongers

No to terrorism!
No to imperialist war!
End the occupation of Iraq

Aznar, then Spanish Prime Minister, led Spain into the Iraq war in the face of opposition from 90% of Spaniards. Last Sunday his party paid the price. But losing the election was a small enough price to pay compared to the 200 people who, almost certainly, paid for Aznar’s policy with their lives.

Aznar gone – could Blair be next?

Everyone in Britain feels horror at the events in Madrid – but Blair’s horror is of a different order. He knows Aznar’s fate could be his own. If the worst happens and we suffer an attack in Britain, millions of people will hold New Labour and the rest of the warmongers responsible. That’s why Jack Straw has ludicrously declared that it is “completely wrong” to think that the war on Iraq has made Spain or Britain more of a target for Al Qaeda, and used the fact that 9/11 happened before the war on Iraq as proof of this!

Terrorism offers no way forward

The Socialist Party condemns the barbaric attacks on the Madrid commuter trains, as we condemned 9/11, and the killing of ordinary civilians in Iraq. These acts of ‘mass terrorism’, which aim to kill ordinary people who bear no responsibility for the policies of their rulers, claim to be in the defence of the victims of imperialism, but they only create more victims of imperialism, and do nothing to further the struggle against it. After all, as the statements of former US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill have made clear, Bush wanted to go to war on Iraq from the moment he was elected, but it was 9/11 that gave him the possibility of winning public support for his brutal war.

It is true that the Madrid attack has weakened, rather than strengthened, the warmongering politicians, because they are seen as responsible for this atrocity. But it has also led to an increase in racism against North Africans and other minorities, and will undoubtedly lead to further attacks on civil liberties in the same way as 9/11 has been used to justify the locking up and torturing of innocent people in Guantanamo Bay.

Because there is a deep-seated anger at imperialism in the neo-colonial world, and particularly given the lack of a mass alternative; it is inevitable that some will be driven to the desperate methods of terrorism. Of course, anger with imperialism did not begin with the latest war on Iraq – it is a consequence of endless years of economic and political oppression. Even the war on Iraq did not really begin on March 20 last year, for a decade a kind of war took place, as UN sanctions led to 5000 children a month dying from hunger and lack of essential medicines.

Iraq in turmoil

But the war itself has massively increased anger and instability throughout the Middle East, which has in turn increased the likelihood of horrific terrorist attacks. In Iraq itself quality of life has plummeted for the great majority. Young people face a life of grinding poverty and unemployment. And the numbers being killed, either by the ‘state terrorism’ of the US-led occupiers, or by the attacks on Iraqi civilians from various terrorist bands, dwarves the horror of the Madrid tragedy. If Al Qaeda was not able to organise in Iraq before the war, they certainly are able to do so now.

The claims of Bush and co. that democracy will be introduced to Iraq in June are a charade. The recently agreed interim constitution makes no mention of how the proposed transitional government will be elected! In fact the US State Department is currently planning either to expand the membership of the current US-appointed Interim Governing Council or to organise a national gathering of ‘200’ respected elders to nominate a new government. So in reality US imperialism will choose a new government of Iraq, which will be backed by US-led troops. Even if, at some point, those troops switch to wearing the blue helmets of the UN, the situation will remain, in essence, the same. This will not be acceptable to the vast majority of Iraqi’s who will continue to demand an end to the occupation. In the countries that make up the ‘coalition’, as more soldiers are killed to defend the interests of US imperialism, calls for the occupation to end will also grow.

However, with fears of ethnic and religious conflict rising, particularly after the terrible suicide bombings of Shia celebrating their most holy of holy days, Ashoura, some opponents of the war have argued that it is impossible for the US-led troops to leave Iraq at the moment. This is the wrong conclusion to draw. The blame for the current situation lies at the feet of the warmongers. The ‘coalition of the willing’ is not in Iraq to bring peace, but to further the interests of US imperialism. To do so they are balancing between the different religious and ethnic groups. This, as has always been the case with imperialist occupations, tends to massively exacerbate the tensions.

The solution lies with the working people and poor masses of Iraq. The only way to guard against ethnic and religious clashes would be through the formation of multi-ethnic defence forces to protect the security of all, under the democratic control of working people. The Socialist Party stands for such measures to be combined with a mass movement of the working class and the oppressed masses for an end to the occupation of Iraq. Such a movement should call for the convening of an Iraq-wide national assembly of democratically elected delegates to vote on the formation of a workers and poor farmers’ government that would provide the basis to deal with the crushing problems facing Iraq.

Kick out the warmongers!

Worldwide, the movement to end the occupation of Iraq must be stepped up and combined with a campaign to force the warmongers out of office. It is they who are responsible for the deaths of many thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of US soldiers. And it is also, as millions of Spaniards so rapidly grasped, their ‘war on terror’ that means the inhabitants of every major city in Europe are living in fear of a terrorist attack.

However, it is not enough to drive Blair and co. from office. We have to find something to replace them. New Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories are all parties of big business, that stand for protecting the profits of British Petroleum and their ilk, whilst destroying public services and attacking the living conditions of working class people. We need a new mass party that stands up for the interests of working class people. The Socialist Party is fighting for such a party - a party that brings together the anti-war movement, trade unionists, anti-privatisation campaigners and the anti-capitalist movement.

For a socialist alternative

At the same time we are campaigning to popularise socialist ideas. War, terrorism, conflict and instability are all increasingly the norm in a capitalist system that is riven by crisis. To permanently end the threat of war and terror we have to fight for the end of capitalism and for the establishment of a democratic socialist world run in the interests of the billions instead of for the profits of the billionaires.