------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 10, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AS HORRORS OF WAR MULTIPLY: GLOBAL PROTESTS APRIL 12 World Demands Regime Change in Washington By Deirdre Griswold With the horrific images of war burning into their consciousness every day, people around the world are now gearing up for April 12--the next globally coordinated wave of demonstrations aimed at halting the imperialist blitzkrieg against the people of Iraq that has been unleashed by the governments of the U.S. and Britain. To the slogan "Stop the war on Iraq," they are now adding, "Bring the troops home now." In the United States, the ANSWER coalition is organizing mass protests in Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles. ANSWER brought half a million people to the capital and 200,000 to the streets of San Francisco on Jan. 18 to try to stop the war before it started. The Stop the War Coalition UK, which turned out more than a million people in London on Feb. 15, is calling its next national action on April 12. Huge protests have also been announced for that day in other countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia. (See internationalanswer.org for latest details.) Opposition to this war, even before the first bomb was dropped, has been unprecedented. Since January, hundreds of thousands have been demonstrating every few weeks in the United States alone. On Feb. 15, some 15 million people marched all over the world. Once the war started on March 19, the protests escalated to mass resistance in San Francisco, where ANSWER and several other groups united to shut the city down on the weekend of March 22-23. A mass march in New York on March 22 called by United for Peace and Justice brought out a quarter million people. In cities and towns across the country, there have been hundreds of actions, including students walking out of school, marches, teach-ins and disruptions. Now, some families of wounded and dead soldiers are speaking out against the war. And, as stiff Iraqi resistance has led the Pentagon to announce it will send another 100,000 troops to Iraq, young recruits who joined the military on the promise of education and job skills are starting to refuse to participate in this unprovoked assault, saying they were lied to about the war. In less than two weeks of combat, the realities on the ground have demolished every single argument put forth by members of the Bush administration to justify their criminal invasion of Iraq. Those who listened to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expected a short war in which the Iraqi people would welcome the U.S. and British as "liberators." They never dreamed that the Iraqis, despite their enormous disadvantage in weaponry, would put up such a heroic resistance against the invasion. The Bush administration had a public relations strategy to gain popular acceptance of the war: it was against one person, Saddam Hussein. Getting rid of him would be easy. But the Iraqi people have shown with their resistance that they know better. This war is against them and against the independence that they won from British colonialism back in the 1950s. As they attack tanks and helicopters with nothing but small arms and grenades, they are telling the world that they would rather die than go back to colonial slavery. They built a prosperous country--the most egalitarian in the Middle East--with their oil revenues. They will not let U.S. and British oil companies take control of their resources again. In these first weeks of war, the realities on the ground have totally contradicted the press briefings in Washington. The lies, hypocrisy and imperial arrogance of the architects of this war, added to daily accounts of civilian casualties that cannot be suppressed, even with Pentagon censorship and a captive media, are filling the anti-war movement with renewed determination and energy. Not only elementary and high school youth, but veterans of the last Gulf War can be found at every anti-war demonstration. They know first-hand how this administration--which has just cut veterans' benefits--used them and then abused them when they returned home sick and disillusioned. The young troops now fighting in Iraq have been deliberately kept in the dark about the crass motives for this war, which is being driven by the imperial ambitions of the super-rich ruling class in both the U.S. and Britain. The hundreds of thousands who were told they must risk their lives to "liberate" Iraq are becoming increasingly bewildered--and many are angry. The reasons given for sending them into combat have proven to be completely false. There is no connection between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq. Iraqis are not welcoming a U.S.-imposed regime. And while U.S. bombs and missiles are massively destroying the country, no "weapons of mass destruction" have been found. The U.S. is now trying desperately to produce such weapons-- needed to justify the carnage--by creating its own "weapons inspectors" in total disregard of the United Nations. Now the troops are caught up in a Vietnam-type situation. They are told their survival depends on killing civilians because they could be combatants "in disguise." This merely compounds the totally criminal character of this war. Civilian deaths are growing into the thousands as Baghdad and other cities are bombed night and day. While on the one hand the U.S. government claims it has the support of the Iraqi people, its troops are so afraid of the people that they are firing on anyone they encounter--including a car packed with 15 women and children trying to flee Najaf. At least 10 in the car were killed. Planes streaking across the country are bombing schools and hospitals, even in little towns, according to a group of U.S. peace activists who drove from Baghdad to Jordan on March 29, encountering devastation along the way. (Associated Press, March 31) The organizers now filling buses to Washington for April 12 are propelled by another kind of crisis, too--the continued assault on the workers and poor here at home. At a time when Bush is demanding sacrifice from U.S. workers in uniform, and sacrifice from working-class taxpayers to pay the huge cost of this war, it is reported that top executive earnings went up by 15 percent last year, while wage workers saw only a 3 percent gain. In other words, the gap between the super- rich and the rest of us continues to grow, even with the huge stock market losses. Jeffrey Barbakow of Tenet Healthcare came away with the biggest capitalist jackpot: $188 million for 2002. Meanwhile, 45 million people in the U.S. can't afford any health care at all. Bill Frist, now the Senate Majority Leader and a prime backer of Bush's war, is linked to Tenet and the health-for-profit industry through both his father and brother. That is why a sea change is taking place in organized labor in the U.S., as rank-and-file workers demand that their unions take a stand against this war and against the domestic repression and anti-labor measures that go along with the policy of endless aggression against the world. At ANSWER's last rally in Washington, on March 15, the head of the Washington Metro Labor Council AFL-CIO, Josh Williams, spoke out strongly against this war, as did Gene Bruskin of U.S. Labor Against the War. Workers, students, veterans, civil rights leaders, lesbian/gay/bi/trans activists, feminists, religious peace activists--and members of the many anti-imperialist groups that make up the ANSWER coalition steering committee--will join with the world on April 12 in solidarity with the Iraqi people and their struggle to expel the invading forces from their homeland--which translates here into bringing the troops home. - END - (Copyright 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] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. 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