20.
anthiemperialist
(10.04.2003 11:09)
0
OCCUPATION IS NOT LIBERATION:
March Will Target Corporate Profiteers, Fox News and the Pro-War Media
Having slaughtered and maimed thousands of Iraqi people,the U.S./British invasion forces are celebrating the use of their massive, overwhelming and brutal military power to crush resistance to their invasion of Iraq. The images portrayed in the U.S. media conceal the reality. While hospitals are overflowing with civilians and soldiers, the streets of the country are littered with incinerated bodies, destroyed homes and families buried alive. (See "Amid Allied Jubilation, a Child Lies in Agony, Clothes Soaked in Blood," Robert Fisk, The Independent (UK): http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=395117 )
The Bush administration is moving rapidly to impose a colonial-style occupation government on Iraq. This is not liberation. It is the use of overwhelming firepower to seize the land and resources of Iraq, and eliminate Iraq's sovereignty, while violating the most basic principles of self-determination. This is a war for Empire. The Bush administration, having carried out a war of conquest in Afghanistan and now in Iraq, will now step up its plans for future wars of aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The people of the United States and the world must stand together with all of those who resist in the Middle East to say no to imperialism and to Empire. The occupation of Iraq will be used to set the stage for intensified war planning against Syria, Iran, southern Lebanon, North Korea, the Philippines, and against the Palestinian people who continue to resist occupation in their homeland. On Saturday, April 12, people in Washington DC and around the world will continue the mobilization against the invasion and the occupation in an international day of action with demonstrations in major capitals around the world.
The global movement that suddenly emerged in the past six months in opposition to Bush and the U.S. war drive is a singularly important development. People all over the world, in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America, in the United States and in Europe marched in coordinated action. These movements have now defied borders and built an international voice of solidarity. Even the New York Times on February 17 referred to this movement as the second "superpower" in the world.
This movement represents the hopefulness of the planet that war, imperialism, oppression, racism and any form of colonialism can be overcome through the lobalization of human solidarity.
It would be the most tragic and wasteful outcome if this movement - less than a year old - decided that its efforts had failed because Bush and the Pentagon proceeded with their slaughter in Iraq. The war on Iraq does not prove the failure of the anti-war movement. If anything, the war on Iraq proves only that the economic, political and military authority in the United States is morally bankrupt. It is nurtured by a system that has become addicted to militarism and war.
Dick Cheney, speaking on behalf of the administration, promised after September 11 that there would e "endless war" and a war lasting a lifetime. These were neither idle comments nor rhetorical flourish. Since then, the administration has been absolutely brazen about its planned military adventures abroad and its systematic war against Arab Americans, Muslims and civil rights and civil liberties at home.
While they will never admit it, this planned "endless war" is a class war waged by the U.S. government on behalf of corporate and banking elites against all those governments in the formerly colonized world that have dared to maintain nominal independence and control over their natural resources. Bush put it succinctly when he said to the world "you are either with us or with them." Working people in the United States have nothing to gain from this war for Empire. It is for the enrichment and power of the same corporate and banking circles that have engaged in mass layoffs, union busting, wage cutting, elimination of healthcare and other benefits. In fact, Bush's war for Empire requires a massive transfer of wealth from social service programs to fund the Pentagon's rapidly expanding budget.
The Bush administration's plans for world domination are based on a fantasy entertained by the right wing and neo-conservative movement and corporate thieves that military power alone is the ultimate arbiter in world politics. The New World Order that they aspire to is similar to the Old World Order of 19th Century colonialism. The people of the world aspire for freedom, justice, equality and self-determination. Brute force alone will not reverse the long historical process whose necessary outcome is liberation. The essential element in this struggle is to maintain and build the global movement -- the force that has always and can win against military and economic might.
http://www.InternationalANSWER.org http://www.VoteNoWar.org info@internationalanswer.org New York 212-633-6646 Washington 202-544-3389 Los Angeles 213-487-2368 San Francisco 415-821-6545
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