>The United States and Britain are bombing Iraq. Iraq has
>never bombed the cities of the United States. The
>progressive movement must ask itself: Does Iraq have the
>right to defend itself against such attacks? Shouldn't anti-
>war forces in the United States call for demilitarizing the
>Pentagon instead of demilitarizing the victims of U.S.
>aggression?
>
>A TACTIC IN A LARGER WAR
>
>Why does the United States maintain the sanctions and
>blockade of Iraq?
>
>Is it just a mistaken policy by U.S. political leaders that
>needs some "humanitarian" fine-tuning? Or should sanctions
>be understood as a tactic in a larger multi-pronged war to
>return Iraq to the status of semi-colonial slavery?
>
>Should the progressive movement oppose sanctions because
>that tactic causes undue harm to civilians? Or should it
>also reject the imperialist goals and objectives that are
>the real motivation for a destabilization strategy that
>includes economic sanctions, routine bombings of the
>country, CIA covert operations, plans to assassinate the
>Iraqi leadership, creating no-flight zones over most of the
>country, and placing tens of thousands of U.S. troops,
>warships, aircraft and advanced missiles on the outer
>perimeters of Iraq?
>
>The sanctions against Iraq began 10 years ago, in August
>1990. The Bush administration bullied the United Nations
>into imposing economic sanctions as a prelude to the full-
>scale 1991 air war against Iraq.
>
>The sanctions were initially put into place to help evict
>Iraqi troops from Kuwait, according to the propaganda of the
>Bush administration. Iraq had invaded Kuwait, an oil-rich
>territory under the domination of an U.S.-backed monarchy,
>in August 1990, after a protracted and complicated dispute
>between the two countries.
>
>The original pretext for the economic sanctions was a lie.
>It was purely for public consumption. If the sanctions were
>meant only to drive Iraqi troops from Kuwait then why,
>nearly a decade after the last Iraqis left, does the United
>States still impose the "most complete embargo of any
>country in modern times," in the words of Samuel Berger,
>President Bill Clinton's national security adviser?
>
>TWO BLOCKADES: IRAQ AND CUBA
>
>The unstated but fairly obvious reason that Washington
>carries out the economic blockade of Iraq is that it wants
>to destabilize the country, overthrow the government of
>Saddam Hussein and replace it with a pro-U.S. regime. The
>United States has tried the same thing against socialist
>Cuba.
>
>The political leaderships in Iraq and Cuba are very
>different. Cuba's leadership is communist and the Iraqi
>government is anti-communist. But both governments have one
>thing in common. Iraq and Cuba both suffered the
>impoverishment and humiliation of colonialism and neo-
>colonialism imposed by U.S. and British imperialism.
>
>Both countries had far-reaching revolutions within a year of
>each other-1958 and-1959. Both revolutions immediately came
>under direct aggression from the imperialist overlords who
>had colonized or enslaved their countries.
>
>The Iraqi Revolution in 1958 prompted Britain to rush
>thousands of troops to fortify its hold on tiny but oil-rich
>Kuwait. As it had with Hong Kong in China, British
>colonialism sliced the key port area of Kuwait out of Iraq
>and declared it a British protectorate. While British troops
>secured Kuwait in 1958, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower
>dispatched 10,000 U.S. marines to Lebanon the very next day
>to shore up Washington's own interests.
>
>In the case of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Eisenhower
>ordered the CIA to begin planning the assassination of Fidel
>Castro. Two years later, under John F. Kennedy, the U.S.
>government organized a mercenary invasion of Cuba by CIA-
>trained counter-revolutionaries.
>
>Cuba used socialist economic methods to bring literacy, full
>employment and free universal health care to its people. It
>was able to free itself of economic neocolonial enslavement
>by integrating into the trading bloc with the Soviet Union,
>East Germany and the other socialist countries.
>
>Although Iraq nationalized its oil industry and other
>economic sectors, its revolution never went beyond the
>boundaries of capitalist property rights. But because of its
>vast oil wealth and the nationalist development model
>adopted by the leadership, Iraq too was able to effect rapid
>social and economic progress for the mass of the population
>after the 1958 revolution.
>
>Official U.S. policy has been hostile to both Iraq and Cuba
>since their revolutions. The "hostility" was remarkably
>consistent regardless of whether a Republican or Democrat
>occupied the White House.
>
>The only exception to the policy of unmitigated hostility
>was during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988. The
>United States supplied weapons to Iraq and encouraged Iraq's
>initial military actions against Iran in 1980. But this
>should be understood for what it was: a cynical ploy to
>weaken and exhaust the 1979 Iranian mass revolution that had
>swept out the dynastic rule of the shah--whose army had
>served as proxy and gendarme for the Pentagon and CIA in the
>Persian Gulf.
>
>The United States armed Iraq to fight Iran in the early
>1980s--but it also sent arms to Iran, as was revealed during
>the 1986 Iran-Contra hearings in Congress. In the words of
>former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, "We wanted them
>to kill each other."
>
>Once Washington had accomplished its objective of weakening
>the Iranian Revolution through the war between Iran and
>Iraq, Pentagon war doctrine was reconfigured to target Iraq
>as the next "potential enemy." Plans and complex war games
>for a U.S. war with Iraq were drafted in 1988, immediately
>after the close of the Iran-Iraq war and two years before
>Iraq fatefully sent its troops against the Kuwaiti mon archy
>in August 1990. ("The Fire This Time," Ramsey Clark,
>Thundersmouth Press, 1992)
>
>SLOGANS SHOULD BE CONSISTENTLY ANTI-IMPERIALIST
>
>The U.S. government represents the interests of Big Oil and
>the biggest imperialist banks. It seeks to dominate the
>Middle East not to bring "human rights" and "democracy" but
>to possess and profit from the fabulous oil wealth under the
>soil.
>
>Iraq has 10 percent of the world's known oil reserves.
>Combined with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran, this region
>contains the largest share of oil on the planet.
>
>Effective sanctions of any type, be they for economic or
>military commodities, require the sanctioning countries to
>position military forces around the targeted country so that
>ships, trucks and airplanes can be interdicted and searched.
>Thus, calling for the United States or UN to maintain
>military sanctions on Iraq provides a political and even
>"legal" justification for the continued military occupation
>of the Gulf region by U.S. military forces.
>
>>From a practical point of view, if the demand for U.S./UN
>economic sanctions to be replaced by "military sanctions"
>were realized, it would still have a devastating impact on
>Iraq's civilian population. The United States would claim
>that almost anything that the civilian economy imports could
>also be used for military applications.
>
>Referring to these items as "dual use" commodities, the
>United States has already halted or postponed 450 out of
>every 500 contracts that were approved by the UN Sanctions
>Committee under the much touted Oil-for-Food program.
>
>Washington will use the category of "military sanctions" as
>a technical method to prevent Iraq from acquiring
>commodities that are essential for sustaining civilian
>economy and human life. For example, the United States has
>banned pencils for schoolchildren because these pencils
>contain graphite, which is also a lubricant. It has banned
>batteries, X-ray machines and ambulances because they could
>be used in military conflicts.
>
>Iraq is now barred from importing adequate supplies of
>chlorine to purify its water. Why chlorine? It could be used
>as a component in a chemical weapon.
>
>Computers too have potential military uses. So importing
>computers has been prohibited for 10 years.
>
>It can only miseducate the broad public about the real
>issues in the Middle East if the progressive movement
>supports the imperialist powers in demanding the
>demilitarization of Iraq. The movement cannot be
>consistently progressive without thoroughly exposing the
>true dynamics of imperialist military and political strategy
>that tries to re-colonize the Arab people.
>
>- END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>Copyright � 2000 workers.org
>
>
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <004e01bffe7e$84666260$0a00a8c0@home>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] July 26 in Cuba
>Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 21:43:12 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="Windows-1252"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Aug. 10, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>July 26 in Cuba
>
>'OUR REVOLUTION CAN'T BE DESTROYED BY FORCE
>OR SEDUCTION'
>
>By Greg Butterfield
>
>On July 26, more than a million Cubans, led by President
>Fidel Castro, protested outside the U.S. Interests Section
>in Havana.
>
>As they marched three-and-a-half miles along the Malecon
>coastal highway, the Cuban people demanded that the 38-year
>U.S. blockade be completely ended and the Cuban Adjustment
>Act repealed.
>
>"Long live our homeland, down with the blockade!" the
>marchers chanted.
>
>Cuban reports called it possibly the biggest demonstration
>ever held there.
>
>"Never has our revolution had so much unity, strength and
>experience as today," President Castro told the marchers.
>
>U.S. "legislators of good faith" had introduced measures to
>ease travel and sales of food and medicine to Cuba, he said.
>But "there is no way of easing the blockade without
>eliminating it completely. How can a country buy anything if
>it cannot sell?"
>
>Members of the 10th U.S.-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan and
>European and Latin American solidarity groups also
>participated in the march.
>
>The massive protest marked the 47th anniversary of the June
>26, 1953, guerrilla attack on the Moncada military garrison
>that launched Cuba's socialist revolution. Twenty-six-year-
>old Fidel Castro led that expedition.
>
>The same day this year, President Castro was awarded the
>Benito Ju�rez International Prize, named for the Mexican
>nationalist president. The award is granted to "outstanding
>fighters for independence, self-determination of peoples,
>non-interference in nations' internal affairs, peaceful
>solution to conflicts and world peace."
>
>An organizing committee composed of some 4,000 Mexicans,
>Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, Puerto Ricans and
>Dominicans, along with social-justice groups and non-
>governmental organizations, voted for him to receive the
>award.
>
>Previous recipients include Nelson Mandela and Rigoberta
>Menchu.
>
>The award was presented by Berta Zapata at a packed ceremony
>in Havana attended by guests from throughout Latin America.
>
>President Castro said he was "overwhelmed" by the honor,
>which he accepted on behalf of the Cuban people. The
>audience applauded when he said, "Whereas in the last 10
>years we have been talking of saving the gains achieved by
>socialism to date, we can now talk of being able to say
>that, little by little, we are reinitiating the construction
>of socialism."
>
>FIERY CHALLENGE TO IMPERIALISM
>
>Three days later, in Santa Clara on July 29, President
>Castro gave a fiery challenge to U.S. imperialism to the
>cheers of 200,000 assembled workers.
>
>He spoke before a gigantic bronze statue depicting communist
>revolutionary Che Guevara, a commander of the July 26th
>Movement that toppled U.S. puppet Fulgencio Batista on Jan.
>1, 1959. Castro, besides being president, also leads the
>Cuban Communist Party.
>
>The families of Guevara and Eli�n Gonz�lez accompanied him
>in Santa Clara.
>
>"Many people waited in vain for years for news that the
>revolution had stopped existing. Without wishing to upset
>their sweet dreams, I must warn them that the Cuban
>Revolution can never be destroyed, neither by force nor by
>seduction," he declared.
>
>"Viva Fidel!" the crowd roared, waving Cuban flags and red
>and black July 26th Movement banners.
>
>The Cuban president recalled the many illegal and violent
>assaults conducted by both Democratic- and Republican-led
>U.S. governments, from the Bay of Pigs invasion to a 1997
>bombing campaign against the Cuban tourist industry.
>
>"The collapse of the socialist camp and the disintegration
>of the Soviet Union deprived our country of its basic
>markets, fuel and food supplies, raw materials, equipment
>and spare parts and led it into an exceptionally difficult
>situation," he recalled. He said that Washington tried "with
>repugnant opportunism to give the 'coup de grace' to the
>revolution" by tightening the blockade.
>
>But the imperialists failed. "Our people resisted, unmoved,"
>he said.
>
>Thanks to a national plan of economic resistance discussed,
>agreed to and implemented in every neighborhood, work place
>and school, Cuba started to turn the economic crisis around
>in 1994. The economy has grown every year since, according
>to the Cuban Central Bank.
>
>In 1999, it grew by 6.2 percent.
>
>"The theorists and fortune-tellers of imperialist policy
>dream that the revolution, which could not be destroyed with
>evil and criminal methods, may be brought down with
>seductive tactics which they have baptized a policy of
>'people-to-people' contacts," the Cuban leader explained.
>
>"We accept the challenge," he said, "but play clean." He
>demanded that U.S. President Bill Clinton let people from
>the United States visit Cuba "without limitations or
>ridiculous fears, as we allow our citizens to travel freely
>and even to live in the United States."
>
>He also honored Guevara and other comrades who were killed
>by the CIA while fighting alongside the Bolivian
>revolutionary movement in 1966. Their remains are entombed
>in a mausoleum in Santa Clara.
>
>"It is our homeland's privilege to keep in this sanctuary of
>solidarity and internationalism the protagonists of one the
>most beautiful pages in the history of Americas," he said.
>
>"Before Bolivar's and Marti's dreams of unity can be
>realized, our Americas are already integrated here.
>Argentineans, Bolivians, Peruvians and Cubans--even a
>daughter of the country that was the birthplace of the first
>man who dreamed of a socialist worldforever resting together
>in this place.
>
>"History is on our side," President Castro concluded,
>"because the unjust economic, globalized and neoliberal
>order being imposed on the world is unsustainable and,
>sooner or later, will collapse. The billions of poor people
>inhabiting the world will become ungovernable and no walled
>line will be able to contain them."
>
>- END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <005401bffe7e$d6cc2260$0a00a8c0@home>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Tax reform or giveaway to the rich?
>Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 21:45:29 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="Windows-1252"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Aug. 10, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL:
>
>TAX REFORM OR GIVEAWAY TO THE RICH?
>
>Sometimes it's hard to see what a change in the tax laws
>mean. Sometimes it's all too easy.
>
>On the deceptive side--though not too deceptive--was the
>income tax cut Congress passed in mid-July, called the
>"marriage-tax reform."
>
>Congress, led in this instance by the Republican Party,
>presents this cut as redressing what it sees as an injustice
>in the tax law. Under the current rules about 25 million
>married couples pay more income taxes than they would if
>they were filing as unmarried individuals.
>
>Now, it wasn't always that way. When many marriages had one
>wage earner in the family, there was actually a tax benefit
>to being married. But with two wage earners at somewhat
>similar wages, there is a slight disadvantage.
>
>So Congress decided to strike a blow for marriage--that is,
>for marriage between men and women, since gay or lesbian
>couples will have no access to this "reform" as the new bill
>reaffirms that built-in bias. At the same time the new bill
>slips in a heavy tax cut for the more affluent 10-to-20
>percent of the married population.
>
>The new bill immediately increases the deductible amount for
>a married couple to twice that for individuals. Currently it
>is 1.67 times that for individuals. The new bill will also
>increase the width of the tax brackets taxed at the lower
>rates of 15 percent and 28 percent for married couples. This
>decreases taxes for those with greater income who otherwise
>would be taxed at the higher rates.
>
>The result is that people with incomes of $10,000 or less
>get almost no benefit, those earning under $50,000 never get
>more than about $200 per year, while those with incomes over
>$75,000 get at least $1,000 per year. The highest paid get
>not only a higher amount but also a higher percentage of
>their income through this so-called reform.
>
>Thus the "reform" fits into the pattern of congressional
>spending bills since at least the first Reagan
>administration. They take from the poor or give to the rich
>or both. Democrats have generally gone along with these
>Republican-sponsored bills after some small compromises.
>
>But the marriage-tax reform pales in its "giveaway to the
>rich" content before another tax bill Congress has proposed.
>This is the big hike in the amount of the estates of those
>who die after accumulating wealth that is not taxed at all.
>Already, for a couple, the first $1.35 million is not taxed.
>Only a tiny percentage of very wealthy people pay this tax,
>and most have already hired teams of lawyers and accountants
>to find ways to pass on their wealth to their families while
>avoiding most of these taxes.
>
>Both these "tax reforms" should be opposed and stopped.
>
>- END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information
>contactWorkers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-
>mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>
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