From: Darrell Rankin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 18:41:07 -0600 To: Darrell Rankin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Stop this unjust and imperialist war! Stop this unjust and imperialist war! Protest on Nov. 17 Cross Canada Day for Global Peace and Justice! - Darrell Rankin, Leader, Communist Party of Canada Manitoba The perpetrators of every war act under the cover of noble aims, such as saving civilization or defeating evil. This war is no different, the real aims of the U.S. ruling class are self-interested and reactionary. The war unleashed against Afghanistan is many times more devastating than the horrible terrorist acts committed in the United States on September 11. The reality is that U.S. imperialism is using the war against global terrorism to dominate the earth and exploit its resources. It is using war, racism and religious intolerance to suppress the people's movements of the world and divide the international working class. U.S. President George Bush had a choice, talk or war. He arrogantly rejected an offer from the Afghan government to negotiate the surrender of the suspect sought for the September 11 terrorist attacks. On October 7, the U.S. administration began its campaign of murdering people in Afghanistan who had nothing to do with terrorism. The policy makers in Washington know they are creating an immense human catastrophe in one of the poorest countries of the world. It matters little to U.S. imperialism that the war is preventing food aid from reaching some five million Afghan people who are in danger of starving to death. According to Noam Chomsky, the U.S. administration requested Pakistan to stop food aid from crossing its border. Bush and his far-right corporate backers really don't care that they have created one million new refugees, or that their chosen allies in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance, grew 135 tonnes of opium poppy this year alone, dominating production in the country. The great danger is that Bush cares more about war and maintaining an unjust international order than about the people of any country, including his own. We should be deeply concerned that the U.S. administration has formally stated that it could extend the war beyond Afghanistan. Canada needs to withdraw from this shameful and profoundly unjust war, a war concocted to carry out the aims of the most aggressive and unscrupulous imperialist country on earth. War will not solve a single problem facing humanity We live in a world where weapons of mass annihilation are available to states and terrorists alike. Global capitalism is riven by violence, deepening contradictions and crises. It is a time when the only advisable way forward is the search for realistic political solutions to terrorism and other tragedies. That would be the courageous path. Instead, nearly thirty countries including Canada have declared their support for the illegal U.S.-led war. They include the world's most powerful military countries. Many are former colonial powers such as the U.S., Britain and Japan. Canada itself was founded on the colonial theft of land from indigenous nations. The war is allowing our capitalist ruling class to extend its uninterrupted policy of internal colonialism, and impose its grotesque experience beyond Canada's borders. The NATO military alliance is the core of the war drive. Approximately, it comprises 20 per cent of the world's population, and is responsible for 60 per cent of world military spending and 80 per cent of world arms exports. NATO's military doctrine includes the option of "first use" of nuclear weapons and the self-declared right to carry out aggression, in defiance of international law. Canada's "allies" have the ability to spark a spiral of violence that can end all life on earth. We are often told that Canada is a weak military power. Yet we spend nearly half the amount on our military than all the countries of South America combined. We are close to fifteenth place in world military spending. Canada is the world's sixth largest arms exporter to the developing world. How many of Canada's soldiers will be killed in Afghanistan by weapons manufactured right here? What the world needs now is the most powerful peace movement in history, one that will put an end to war as a solution for anything. If governments lack the political will to carry out such a reform, then the people's movements must carry it out for them. We need to restore to the U.N. its essential role in finding peaceful solutions to conflict and achieving universal disarmament. The arms race must end, or it will end humanity. No state or group of states like the U.S. or NATO can replace the United Nations and carry out an aggression. International law must prevail. An "endless," unjust and imperialist war The language of rage and vengeance from Washington today has not been heard since the days before the Second World War. U.S. President Bush has declared the war against terrorism may have no end. Bush's words indicate that the most reactionary sections of the U.S. ruling class are preparing for a sustained campaign to divide and rule the world: "Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle is broader. Every nation has a choice to make... there is no neutral ground." This dangerous rhetoric is an excuse to reshape international relations and consolidate the power of the extreme right in the U.S. itself. The U.S. Congress has authorized the U.S. president to attack any individual or country he determines to be involved in the September 11 attacks. It has restored the right of its agencies to carry out extra-judicial executions (murders) and assassinate foreign citizens. Few words are needed to expose the duplicity of U.S. capitalists and their allies. They speak about "racial tolerance" and respect for Islam, and at the same time they bomb the people who they "defend." The United States has 400 armed terrorist groups on its soil, more than any other country. Many are state-supported and act internationally, like those responsible for 3,478 Cuban citizens who have perished over the last four decades. Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against a military response to terrorism, is under 24-hour police protection due to death threats. Hundreds of Arab-Americans have been put in custody for no reason. As usual, the capitalists in NATO countries have portrayed themselves as great defenders of civilization, a civilization under attack and weighed with the burden of fighting the enemy, this time international terrorism. The rest of us, the "international community," are supposed to be grateful. Other voices are more truthful and realistic. Here are the views of Cuban president Fidel Castro before the attack on Afghanistan: "All this war hysteria, all this invention of a state of war has the clear aim of crushing and neutralizing the movement of the people." Castro called the world situation "far more serious than we can possibly imagine." Castro is not alone in his thinking. The start of U.S. aggression on October 7 sparked massive protests in the world's major cities, including in NATO member countries. Powerful protests rocked the Pakistan government, which has nuclear weapons, leading to the firing of top military leaders. Peace groups are preparing for a sustained effort to mobilize people for peaceful solutions to terrorism and to end the social antagonisms that give rise to war. Nearly all condemn the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan as a savage and futile attempt to end terrorism. Many in the emerging peace movements understand that the Bush administration's close ties to the energy, oil and military industries is helping to fuel the war drive. The military industries in turn have close ties to the U.S. media, which is helping to whip the U.S. public into a war frenzy. "Terrorism will only end by international political and diplomatic efforts... Negotiated peace agreements for "hot spots" around the world, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are real policy alternatives that would isolate terrorists and undermine terrorism's root causes," said the Communist Party USA in a statement immediately after the bombing had started. "Capitalist globalization, gross inequality, poverty and corporate plunder of the world's natural resources and labour provide fertile soil for anger and desperation to grow," said the CPUSA statement. "War will have devastating consequences for the American people, including racial profiling and attacks on civil liberties and democratic rights." Hidden behind the patriotic zeal of the U.S. war drive are different realities. The way for the war has been paved by the whole nature of the development of bourgeois society. For years, U.S. imperialism has led an unbridled arms race to bury socialism and dominate the earth. New weapons of mass annihilation and sophisticated communications have created dangerous views of invincibility, triumphalism and arrogance in NATO's ruling circles. More than fear and anger over the people's movements are behind imperialism's use of war as a "surge suppressor." That is a matter of survival for the capitalist system. Another aim of U.S. imperialism is to use military domination to plunder weaker nations, particularly the vast oil resources of Central Asia. Oil reserves in the region may reach 60 to 200 billion barrels of oil, proven gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. U.S. imperialism has its own agenda, to gain advantages over its rivals, including Russia which until now was most closely concerned with Central Asian oil. But many NATO governments are ready even anxious to support U.S. imperialism in a united crusade to neutralize or suppress the peoples movements for economic and social emancipation. The more anxious, the more subservient. Canada and the war The first target of the war in North America is the sovereignty of Canada and Mexico, followed closely by the democratic rights of its peoples. Attacks on Muslims and Arabs are escalating in our societies, truth and liberties are disappearing. Vile propaganda of fear and hatred is spewed from the corporate media. It must not be allowed to drown efforts by labour and people's movements to resist racism and religious intolerance. Sunera Thobani, past president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and Winnipeg journalist Leslie Hughes are paying a severe price for speaking out against the war. Thobani investigated by the RCMP and viciously attacked in the media. Hughes a can of paint dropped on her car as she was getting in. Ottawa's generous gift of frigates, warplanes and 2,000 troops places Jean Chretien's Liberal Party among the most loyal of Bush's supporters. In the days following September 11, when bloodthirsty calls for vengeance were prominent, Chretien said he had a "balanced" and patient approach. That nonsense is gone, Chretien has the military adventure he wanted from the start. He "has been standing on the sidelines, trying to tag along with the big boys," said one commentator. The loyalty of Chretien and the premiers of Canada's energy-exporting provinces will be on display further when they visit Dallas and Los Angeles November 27-30 to discuss continental energy agreements. Ottawa is busy cluttering the path to peace, with draconian laws that create fear and hatred, and back the war effort. Bill C-36, now being rammed through parliament, permits "preventative" custody, defines terrorism (partly) as any action that interferes or disrupts an "essential service", and bans cross examination of evidence for those charged with terrorism. Will we know if governments use torture to get evidence? The spies among us now have more millions and greater powers to tap communications. Police in Toronto are busy compiling lists of "terrorist sympathizers," gleaned from people already eager to inform on friends, workmates and relatives seven hundred so far. Other measures permit easier deportations, profiling of suspects at borders, and restricting access to government information, including penalties for civil servants who might find themselves guilty of idle chit chat. All of these measures have been used in earlier decades, targeting immigrants, members of the Communist Party or militant trade unions. In present society when everything bad is good, one of the most corrupt ideas is that war will solve the deepening economic crisis, by boosting military production. What could be better than reviving the foundries and automobile plants? The reality is that the working class will pay for both the war and the economic crisis, with the exception of a small handful employed in military production (and even these workers are super-exploited, given the enormous profits of the industry.) Left and democratic forces against the war are emerging, but are not yet powerful enough to pull Canada out of the war. The Communist Party of Canada issued a statement on September 12 condemning the terrorist attacks and calling for political solutions and resolved at its Central Committee meeting in October to mobilize opinion against the war, especially in the labour movement. To its great credit, the federal NDP opposed the war from the start. The federal NDP may be the only social democratic party in a NATO country opposed to the war; others are great promoters. The Green Party and the CPC (Marxist-Leninist) are also opposing the war. Shamefully, the Manitoba NDP government issued a statement October 7 that "we stand behind the Canadian government and ... the members of the armed forces who have been pledged by the prime minister in the effort to fight terrorism." The Saskatchewan NDP government has yet to oppose the war. Across Canada, 30 groups have formed the September 11 peace coalition that is calling for a November 17 Cross-Canada Day of Non-Violent Action for Global Peace and Justice. Opposition to the war is growing. International labour solidarity vital for peace The onset of war and the global economic crisis are compelling closer unity of labour organizations in Canada and the world. Divisions remain, but they can be surmounted. Unable to advance solutions to the growing crises of capitalism, imperialism is using the war to divide humanity and the international working class with racism and religious intolerance. What better way than war to maintain the domination of a small handful of imperialist countries over the oppressed nations and workers of the world? Even without the imposition of war and economic crisis, the attack by capital against labour is ferocious. Restrictions on trade unions, laws to increase the work week, reduce pensions and other anti-social measures are common in almost all advanced capitalist countries. It is of immense importance that the unions in Europe and North America, organized mainly in the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, are developing a militant approach to capitalism. The ICFTU has called a "Global Unions" day of action on November 9. According to ICFTU General Secretary Bill Jordan, the action will mark the "unwillingness of trade unions to accept the negative effects that globalization is imposing on workers around the world, and draw attention to the serious deficiencies in the world trading system at the present time." The ICFTU, including the Canadian Labour Congress, has been the stable support of social democratic parties, many are in power in Europe (Britain, Germany, France, Greece, Sweden, etc.). For years, these parties have promoted capitalism with a "human face." That hopeless project is in more trouble with the war. "We represent hundreds of millions of people who have stopped believing that trade liberalization can bring higher living standards and more employment," says Jordan. Conditions have worsened greatly since August when Jordan said that. The need to build the unity of the international working class movement has never been greater. The labour movement is the hope of the world in ending war and creating a better society. In Canada, the number of labour organizations opposed to the war is growing. The leadership of major CLC affiliates such as the Postal Workers, CUPE and NUPGE are against the war. The CLC has adopted positions calling for solidarity with the Afghan people and opposing the expansion of the war. All three labour centrals in Quebec have passed strong resolutions against the war, as have labour councils in Toronto/York, Oakville and Victoria. Activists in many other CLC affiliates are building support for an anti-war position. Speak out and now against imperialism and the humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan War is always seeded with shifting alliances and unresolved contradictions, so it is heartening to see such a powerful early reaction against the war by many groups and parties. Difficulties in forging a broad coalition of forces against war cannot be confused with the long-term prospects of the labour and people's movements. Certain facts cannot be ignored. A social system that uses war to resolve problems cannot promise a better future. The present social system is based on global impoverishment and injustice. The history of war and capitalism show that it is against humanity's future, and that socialism and peace must prevail. The First World War (1914-1918) started soon after capitalism entered its imperialist stage. Apologists for capitalism called it "the war to end all wars," possibly the most dangerous lie ever told. Now we are in an endless war. Humanity cannot live with this. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
