America’s Iraq: chaos and atrocities

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Tons, transports them to the theater of operations, and U.S. In fact, he voted for a bill requiring hospitals to the heroism of the Vietnamese and supported by a turn in immigrants who sought medical help. He also giant antiwar movement at home, eventually refused opposes giving citizenship to children born in the U.S. to fight Washington’s war. Building a movement with Middle East, he has voted in favor of deepening the of the United States today, the antiwar movement militarization of the border with Mexico. Perhaps bative components of the unions and of community gal for the border patrol to interfere with the 7000 struggles. It must seem relevant to those whose first anti-immigrant vigilantes of the Minutemen Project, waking thought is how to find a job or keep their because their help has been “productive and good.”

try that “supports terrorism” or inadequately fights on the other hand, would require that our movement drop its demand for “Money for Jobs, Not War!” It would advertise mass actions by promoting a list of tion. To be a consistent civil libertarian, Paul argues, the entire federal budget will be consumed by Social one must defend the rights of the “unborn.” Roe v. speakers that included the viciously anti-immigrant Wade, and many other federal civil liberties and civil Paul and Buchanan at a time when the fightback vate sector output will need to go to just these two rights rulings and legislation, are, according to Paul, portant working-class struggles in the U.S. It would feature Paul supporters who hail his effort to keep plained that Social Security is immoral, because it nation before him, Paul uses a call for states’ rights as Arab and Muslim students out of the U.S. It would forces responsible people to pay for those who were a code word to obscure his opposition to LGBT rights, ments. Such a “united front” would make the antiwar movement uninhabitable by those most crucial to its er gain of the civil rights movements of our time. It should be no surprise that commentator Glen Ford gender equality. According to Paul, fighting for Black of the Black Agenda Report has described the rise of rights or women’s rights is illogical, as the categories Paul’s Tea Party movement as “White Nationalism on today is the kind of unity exemplified by the United National Antiwar Conference to be held in Albany, structs when it comes to thinking about liberty. The fully struggle for freedom is as an individual property tivists, faith communities, Muslim Americans facing Vietnam, along with the experience of the civil rights, a new witch hunt, and civil libertarians fighting not women’s liberation, and labor movements, shows only the Patriot Act but the Arizona law as well will rible consequences for the United States and would join with international guests to find ways to revive not vote for such legislation today. He argues that mass action for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. the children of immigrant workers should be denied pendent action in the streets. The ruling-class parties troops, mercenaries, and bases from the Middle East schooling and emergency room treatment, since too and South Asia. It is on this kind of basis that the new much “welfare” is drawing immigrant workers to the cial composition. A movement that reaches deep into Socialist Action may 2010 7 Iraq’s disputed and inconclusive election continues to draw commentary in the U.S. press that the country’s political crisis could “delay the withdrawal of American troops.” But the journalists who make this ominous observation never ask what American troops are doing there, and why it should be their obligation to solve the country’s political problems?

If the withdrawal of U.S. troops is conditional on political peace in the country, they could remain there indefinitely. What other countries have internal problems the U.S. bosses think could be solved by U.S. military occupation? Certainly, eight years of U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has not produced the results the American administrations that launched and sustained the occupation claimed that they were seeking.

Despite political and military defeats suffered by al-Qaeda and allied groups, civil war continues in Iraq. The Huffington Post reported April 25: “April has been the deadliest month in Iraq so far this year, with more than 263 civilians killed in war-related violence, according to an to an Associated Press count.” The article claimed that this carnage was “dramatically lower” than in past years. But this body count is still staggering, even if it is less than the wholesale slaughter that prevailed in earlier years of the occupation.

An April 23 AP dispatch summarized the bombings over the last several months. On that date 69 people were killed by a blast aimed at Shiites. On Oct. 25, 155 people were killed in a blast aimed at government buildings. And so on.

Journalists who have taken the trouble to talk to Iraqis have found that generally they blame the Americans for the slaughter, although the bombings are clearly carried out by one faction of Iraqis aimed at other segments of the Iraqi population. The reason is that this (continued from page 6: “Would a ‘left-right’ coalition revive the antiwar movement?”)

Security and Medicare. Forty percent of our entire priprograms.”

On a recent Chris Matthews TV interview, Paul exirresponsible enough not to save money for their retirement when they were young.

Even more extreme are Paul’s views on race and of oppressed nationality and gender are false cononly basis on which he believes one can meaningowner.

Paul has stated that the Civil Rights Act had terterror did not exist before the U.S.-led invasion.

Moreover, Iraqis have experienced the ruthlessness of the foreign troops toward them. A dramatic example of this has been revealed recently by the on-line whistle-blowing service Wikileaks, which acquired a classified video of a U.S. air strike against civilians. Twelve passersby in an Iraqi street were mowed down by fire from an Apache helicopter. The incident gained the notice of the international press because two of the dead were Reuters journalists.

An on-line article dated April 6 by Time, hardly a left-wing or even liberal journal, gives a clear account of what the video, entitled “Collateral Murder” by Wikileaks, showed: “The crews of the two Apaches can be heard speaking about a handful of men, saying some are armed with AK-47s and one with a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, although it’s not clear from the video as released that such weapons are being carried. For alleged insurgents carrying weapons while a U.S. attack helicopter circles overhead, the men seem re(Left) Ralph Nader, a long-time advocate of unity with the right wing for “common” objectives.

of immigrant parents.

most ominously, Paul sponsored a bill making it illeHe also votes to deny visas to students from any counterrorism, as defined by the U.S. government.

and sees Roe v. Wade as an assault on the Constituattacks on states’ rights.

gay marriage, affirmative action, and nearly ever oththe March.”

What kind of unity is needed?

that the kind of activity needed to move the U.S. corporate elite to accede to our demands, is mass indegage the power of such a movement by its size and soRahmat Gul / AP markably nonchalant, strolling unhurriedly along a Baghdad street. “After getting command approval to attack the armed group, an initial volley from an Apache’s 30mm cannon blows some of them apart. An Apache crewman says, ‘Ha, ha, ha—I hit ‘em.’

Another comment: ‘Look at those dead bastards.’ When a wounded man is seen crawling for cover, an Apache crew member hopes he reaches for a gun to justify shooting him again. ‘All you got to do is pick up a weapon.’ he says. “Suddenly a van appears and Iraqis hop out to help the man. The helicopter crew seeks and receives permission to fire on the vehicle. In the ensuing barrage, two children inside the vehicle are apparently wounded, and their father, a And while Paul is for withdrawing troops from the Paul is an obstetrician who calls abortion murder Like many supporters of racial and gender discrimisuccess.

The history of the fight against U.S. intervention into (Left) Iraqis carrying a photo of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr mourn a bombing victim. He was one of 69 people killed April 23 in blasts aimed at Shiites.

Good Samaritan who had stopped to take the wounded man to the hospital, is allegedly killed. “When U.S. ground troops arrive later, they discover the youngsters. ‘Well, it’s their fault,’ a member of the Apache crew says, ‘for bringing kids into a battle.’ Initially, the U.S. said the dead were all insurgents and had been killed in battle, but the video as released seems to offer no evidence of hostile intent by those on the ground.”

Commenting on the video in the April 7 issue of the British Guardian, a journalist noted how much like a video game the incident was. It showed how the U.S. military has come to slaughter people from afar, as if in a video game. It gave substance to the slogan that has become current in Pakistan that “the Americans kill people like insects.”

The Guardian of April 27, covering an inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war, printed this vignette: “An officer of the regiment detaining Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel worker, when he was beaten to death said his soldiers held the view that ‘all Iraqis were scum,’ it was disclosed today.”

So much for “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” and so much for any illusions that the occupation helped the Iraqi people, or that its continuation is going to help them either. Of course, the U.S. authorities by their nature do not need a good excuse to intervene. They will invent one if necessary. The whole Iraq war experience demonstrates that abundantly. They will only withdraw their troops and cease their intervention in Iraq if masses of American people insistently and unequivocally demand it in the streets. n the working class, the class who machines the weapthen populates the armies is their biggest nightmare.

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army, witness to this kind of intrinsic social power should be our goal.

To involve the great majority of the working people must be a safe place for the most militant and comhouse. It must be welcoming to the 200,000 LGBT activists who recently marched on DC.

A united front with the anti-interventionist far right, against the racist Arizona law is among the most imnaturally draw in the openly racist Tea Party eleThe unity that we need in the antiwar movement NY, on July 23, 2010 (see www.nationalpeaceconference.org). Here veterans, unionists, community ac“broad” antiwar movement will be built. n

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Misha Japaridze / AP (Left) Anti-government demonstrators fill the streets of Bishkek, Kirghizia, on April 24. cording to one report, such formations played a role in the buildup to the insurrection. But there is no concrete evidence about that in reliable sources. In the power vacuum that exists, if such bodies are genuinely representative or can serve as a forum for a political program in accordance with the aspirations of the masses, their influence should soon become apparent and undeniable to all serious journalists.

However, past experience, as in post-World I Germany and Austria, demonstrates that even soviets (democratic workers’ councils) without the leadership of a revolutionary party are not likely to be able to lead a socialist transformation. And there is no visible sign yet of any revolutionary socialist political organization in Kirghizia.

There was a revolt against at least some of the privatizations of the Bakiyev regime, which were carried out in the spirit of the policy of restoring capitalism of the old Soviet bureaucracy and with the same or even worse corruption. There has been a report in the Russian-language Kirghiz Komsomolskaya Pravda dated April 23 that an official of the ousted regime will be

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Journalists who took the trouble to talk to Iraqis found that generally they blame the Americans for the slaughter.