The Gulf War: What it means and how to stop it

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14 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1991 (Statement by Political Committee)

President George Bush, and America's ruling capitalist class, have unleashed the most destructive air armada the world has ever seen against the 17 million people of Iraq. However, the real immediate target of "Desert Storm" (the code-name for the U.S.led strike launched on Jan. 16) is the 200 million-strong Arab nation, carved up into separate states over the past century by the Western colonialists.

From Northern Africa to the Persian Gulf the Arab nation, parceled out as booty among the imperialist brigands, has been in virtually unending revolt since the beginning of this century. In a cascading series of uprisings, Arabs, along with hundreds of millions of other captive peoples of the world, have fought for and achieved a condition of semi-independence from Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Austria-to name only the main imperialist oppressors.

In the course of the colonial revolution most of the old-style colonies won their political "independence"-many of them only since the end of World War II But as the vassal states won a measure of independence they were immediately subjugated by a new kind of capitalist imperialism which continues to reign over and super-exploit the neo-colonial world by virtue of its enormous economic power. Kings, princes, and military and civilian dictators of all kinds are regularly installed and replaced by mighty international banking and industrial corporations-backed up by the military might of the most developed industrial powers in the capitalist world And standing above them all is the superimperialism of the American ruling class, the richest and most powerful of the new colonialist powers.

The U.S. government: world cop The U.S. military colossus, before World War II, sent its marines mainly to maintain "order" in its Latin American backyard. But, since the second big redivision of the colonial world among the victors after WWII, American military power has increasingly functioned as a central force for maintaining imperialist world domination.

And now, ever since Stalinist dictatorship began to crack under the impact of the upsurge that swept Eastern Europe starting in the autumn of 1989, the role of world protector of profits and privilege has definitively passed to the ruling class of the United States. President Bush's proclaimed "New SOCIALIST ACTION Send to 3435 Army St., Suite Name Adddress City nIL.

NO World Order" signifies American military power standing at the head of an unholy alliance of capitalist imperialists and their puppet regimes, and Stalinist bureaucratic despots.

All the world's direct and indirect exploitative regimes are compelled to unite in defense of profits and privilege wherever it is challenged. But because of profound differences among them caused by a deepening crisis in the world economy, they find it increasingly difficult to hold together.

United in defense of their power and privileges against the world's great majority of exploited and oppressed peoples, they are increasingly riven by conflict over the distribution among themselves of the wealth systematically expropriated from the world's laboring peoples. This inherently contradictory process requires a powerful super-arbiter to act in their collective interests when they begin to fight among themselves. American imperialism's role in the New World Order is to police its partners in the ruling alliance, as well as its rebellious victims.

That's the real meaning of the AmericanSubscribe to revolution in Eastern Europe, and the struggles of workers in the U.S.

I 16 months for $3 I 11 year for $6 28, 5 Francisco, CA 94110 State Zip led imperialist assault on Iraq. The stakes are far higher than a fight over who shall reap the greatest share of the oil profits produced in the Persian Gulf. The very existence of the present world social order is threatened by an impending economic catastrophe that promises to severely aggravate the existing divisions between the ruling groups. Only this economic reality can explain the present war crisis which has resulted in the U.S. president's decision to risk tens of thousands of American lives in the face of the most widespread and vigorous opposition to war in American history.

The Iraqi regime, wracked by a crisis partly resulting from their eight-year war with Iran and partly from hostile economic action by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, took a course of action highly inimical to the interests of the imperialist world. [See the last four issues of this newspaper for detailed documentation.] This led to the ultimatum issued by George Bush to Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq.

It seems highly unlikely that Saddam Hussein will capitulate to the Commander-in-Chief of the New World Order despite the awesome military power unleashed. The Iraqi regime is showing that it believes it has less to lose by fighting back.

The commitment they seem to have made to take on the American-led imperialist Goliath flows from a belief that they can cut a better deal for Iraq by basing themselves on the militant determination of the one million-strong Iraqi army, backed up by the equally determined support of the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people, the Arab nation as a whole, and last but not least the opposition by the American people to imperialist war taking its heavy toll of dead and maimed American men and women in uniform.

Tactics for antiwar movement Even before the shooting started on Jan. 17 the temperature of antiwar sentiment had been rising to a boiling point. Demonstrations, often entirely spontaneous, erupted in cities throughout the nation. And such protests, more widespread than anyone could have expected, also broke out in places which had not seen such actions even during the Vietnam War era.

Two major antiwar demonstrations, scheduled to take place in both Washington D.C. and in San Francisco on Jan. 19 and 26 have been gathering an accelerating momentum. Moreover, symptomatically, groups of demonstrators began unscheduled demonstrations on bridges and streets in a multitude of large and small cities throughout the land. Many of these peaceful protest actions spilled over into civil disobedience-blocking traffic on bridges and city streets-testifying to the rising temper of opposition.

Similar protests are beginning to proliferate throughout Europe. Besides independently mobilized massive actions ranging from England to Germany, many European antiwar groups and coalitions are scheduled to join the giant Jan. 26 actions planned for both coasts of the United States. The next big days of protest, it seems clear, will increasingly take place on a world scale.

Thus, while Bush makes token declarations of opposition to Gorbachev's crackdown on Lithuanian protestors, he is faced with a similar potentially revolutionary dynamic beginning to unfold throughout the imperialist camp.

There is much evidence of the unprecedented depths being reached at such an early stage in the Gulf War. More participation by main line trade unions have already been registered here and abroad. In the San Francisco region alone, six Bay Area Central Labor Councils have endorsed the Jan. 26 march and rally against the war.

Another symptom is a "March for Peace" planned to take place in San Francisco on Jan. 21 by Black community organizations commemorating Martin Luther King's birthday. Even before the shooting began it was re-oriented by its organizers to focus on a protest against the impending war. And within minutes of the dropping of the first bombs on Baghdad, demonstrators began to appear at pre-selected sites scheduled by antiwar coalitions for the day the threatened shooting war would begin.

Thus on Jan. 17, places like the Federal Building in San Francisco attracted over 30,000 protestors, and the next day tens of thousands more demonstrated at the same site early in the morning and closed it down. This was another symptom of a previously unequaled national opposition to an American war.

In addition to these planned and partially planned demonstrations, a television reporter covering one entirely unplanned at the San Francisco Stock Exchange on the same day noted that in his view the selection of this site by what in his opinion seemed to be a spontaneous demonstration by a cross-section of the population signified a surprising "rise in mass consciousness."

Need for peaceful, legal protests The criminal war on the Arab people can be brought to a halt, just as the assault on the Vietnamese people was halted by millions marching in the streets of America. The Jan. 19th, 21st and 26th mass mobilizations point the way. The American people can stop this crime against the Arab nation and the entire human race by way of a relentless series of peaceful and legal marches, demonstrations and protest meetings around the central demand: "Bring U.S. Troops Home Now!"

Every such mobilization, showing clearly where the overwhelming majority stand, contributes to ever larger mobilizations that will ultimately prove to be irresistible.

But antiwar activists and their organizaions must be on guard against letting their natural outrage, triggered by the criminal assault on the Arab people, lead them away from constitutionally guaranteed peaceful, legal mass protest. The criminal U.S. capitalist government will be sure to try to hold the movement as a whole responsible for any poorly considered reflex action taken by a small minority of the movement.

Moreover, the Vietnam War experience shows that the secret police agencies of federal, state and local governments are capable of attempting to dupe innocent and sincere protestors into taking illegal actions. In fact the official record of those days proves that these police agencies hired and paid for provocateurs to carry out illegal acts which it then sought to blame on law-abiding peaceful protestors.

[See "COINTELPRO," the documented account from government records of these and other illegal acts by the FBI and other secret police agencies.] The organizations of working people have a special responsibility to help build effective mass peaceful protest. The experiences of trade unionists and civil and human rights fighters are especially relevant to guide the struggle under today's conditions. And they will be serving, at the same time, to advance their own class interests as well as the interests of the great majority of the people.

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