March 16, 2004
Issue One—Winter 2004
U.S. War and Occupation in Iraq: Views, Thoughts, and Analysis from some of America's Longest-Held Political Prisoners
This is the first issue of 4strugglemag. It’s a little past our hoped-for release date and it doesn’t have all of the articles we planned on. We will get better and larger.
This issue focuses on the war and occupation of Iraq, especially discussion of the real reasons why the u.s. government launched this war. We welcome further discussion and analysis. Understanding and analysis are crucial, but then taking action in support of your thoughts and beliefs is key. 4strugglemag supports and encourages participation in all anti-war resistance. We urge all our outside readers to participate in the March 20th worldwide anti-war rallies. As political prisoners, we ask you to carry our militant spirits and chanting voices to the demonstrations with you.
The next issue will be out in late Spring. One focus will continue to be the war and occupation. We’d also like to have some reports from the various March 20th actions.
See you next time.
Dynamic Peace and Justice
Jaan Laaman, editor
Jaan Laaman (W41514)
P.O. Box 100
South Walpole MA
02071 USA
Table of Contents
Truth and Resistance: u.s. out of Iraq.....................by Oscar López Rivera
War in Iraq--Imperialism in the 21st Century...................by Jaan Laaman
U.S. War and Occupation of IRAQ....................................by Tom Manning
War in Iraq--September '03...........................................by Sundiata Acoli
Why Smack Iraq?.................................................................by Bill Dunne
The Man-Hunters of Taskforce 121...............................posted at rwor.org
Danger During the 2004 Election Year.............................by Jaan Laaman
The Way of History........................................................ by Tom Manning
Political Prisoners in the united states..............................by Jaan Laaman
Global Day of Action Against War and Occupation: March 20, 2004
Cover illustration by Tom Manning
Truth and Resistance: U.S. out of Iraq
by: Oscar López Rivera
The plans of bush the lesser and his crypto-fascist clique for annexing Iraq went on smoothly as long as they successfully fabricated, disseminated, and sold their lies. The overwhelming majority of US society, overcome with the fear and hysteria of post 9/11, chose to believe the lies, and gave its support to the war against Iraq. Armed with this support, the lesser and his clique refused to listen to the forces opposing the war (which comprised the majority of humanity), to its allies in the European Community, to the UN Security Council, or even to the most experienced military men in the Pentagon. As the imperium incarnate, they felt ready and poised to annex Iraq or any other part of the world. For them the lies had worked – or so they thought.
Believing the lies had worked, the lesser, dressed in full military regalia, conveniently declared victory over Iraq within a few weeks after the u.s. invasion and occupation. Along with the defeat of the Iraqi military forces came the massive destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure, and havoc and chaos prevailed. Besides the dead and the maimed for life, the war victimized the whole Iraqi nation and its people. We were told that they were defeated and humiliated into submission.
The lesser and his clique had all but accomplished their goals. The Iraqi petroleum was in the hands of the u.s. oil industry, and u.s. enterprises were ready to start the rebuilding of the infrastructure. The u.s. occupying military forces were in their fortresses. And all of the military expenses and reconstruction costs were to be funded by Iraqi oil.
But one reality confronted them for which they couldn’t fabricate lies – the BODY BAGS with dead u.s. soldiers and the CASUALTIES inflicted by Iraqi Resistance. “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was succeeded by “Operation Desert Scorpion,” but the casualties continued to mount. There was nowhere in Iraq -- not even in their fortresses – that the u.s. occupying military forces could feel safe.
Only two months after the lesser’s celebratory declaration, he and his clique found themselves stuck in the quagmire of their own lies. The lies about “weapons of mass destruction,” about “Iraq being a haven for Al Qaeda,” and about the Iraqi people welcoming the u.s. military invasion and occupation were catching up with them. The Iraqi Resistance brought home the war reality. The fabricated lies lost their power.
The reality struck the lesser and his clique like a bolt of lightning. They had put u.s. soldiers in harm’s way without a strategy for this situation. The Iraqi Resistance put in check the super mighty u.s. armed forces and stopped Iraq’s petroleum from being used by the u.s. government to finance the war. Since Iraqi petroleum wasn’t producing the money the u.s. government needed to fund the war, and the casualties kept on mounting, the lesser and his clique were forced to come up with a new plan.
The lesser had to tell the u.s. congress and the public he needed $87.5 billions more. OUCH! This money will come from the pockets of the taxpayers – many of whom have sons, daughters, husbands, wives, or other family members in harm’s way in Iraq. Some are the same people who are demanding their loved ones be brought home now. These are among the people who are withdrawing their support for the lesser, and demanding not more military expenditures but a better economy. Besides money, the lesser and his clique are asking the UN Secretary General and the European Community to get behind the war effort in Iraq. France, Germany, Russia and China aren’t going to support the u.s. government’s plan as is.
Unfortunately for the Iraqi people and the u.s. troops in Iraq, the u.s. government has no intention other than to maintain its military occupation. Because it’s the only way it can secure control of Iraq’s petroleum and other resources.
For the Iraqis who want peace, freedom, justice, and democracy, the Resistance must go on. Their struggle is going to be prolonged and protracted. It’s the only way they are going to force the u.s. out of Iraq.
Those of us who oppose the war must support the Iraqi people and demand that the u.s. government leave Iraq immediately. We don’t want any more u.s. soldiers or Iraqi citizens dead or maimed. Let’s expand the circle of compassion and stop the lesser and his crypto-fascist clique from their lies and destruction.
A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE. LET’S MAKE IT SO!
Oscar López Rivera
87651-024/P.O. Box 33
Terre Haute IN
47808 USA
War in Iraq—Imperialism in the 21st Century
by: Jaan Laaman
Iraq, Winter 2004. There is much to be said, discussed and understood about the U.S. invasion, war and occupation of this ancient, oil-rich country.
The Bush government’s pre-war reasons for the invasion, disputed and disbelieved by millions immediately, have all been proven totally false. The latest U.S. government line about bringing democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people would be simply laughable, but since U.S. troops arrest, brutalize and kill Iraqi people everyday it is no joke.
Late last year, Medact, a British Medical Human Rights group, released credible estimates of up to 55,000 Iraqi civilian casualties. The killing goes on daily. Human Rights Watch, also in December of 03, reported that the U.S. and British invasion armies fired approximately 13,000 cluster bombs at Iraqi towns and villages. Over 2 million smaller bombs were released from these cluster munitions. This kind of hi-tech death, war and occupation can never be seen as democracy or freedom, no matter how slickly the Bush government or the corporate media manipulate the facts and images.
While the dying is disproportionately Iraqi, well over 500 U.S. soldiers have died and about 2500 have been wounded in this invasion and occupation so far. It is a certainty that many more U.S. soldiers will die and be injured and crippled. This killing will only cease once the war and occupation ends and all U.S. troops are brought home.
There are almost no serious analyses of this war and occupation coming from the corporate media or bourgeois politicians, even those publicly opposing the war. From among the people though, especially from progressive political and opposition groups and individuals, explanations and analysis of why Bush really invaded Iraq and what they are trying to gain is being heard.
Identifying some of the main themes, first of all there is oil. The second largest known oil reserve in the world is now under George Bush’s control. The other huge reserves of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, etc., are now in easy gun range of a large U.S. occupation army in Iraq. However this develops, there is no doubt that the people and governments of these countries know that the U.S. is now poised to go further. This could be more invasions or political and economic strong-arming.
Control of Iraq and increased hegemony of the Middle East also gives the U.S. government and U.S. corporations a greatly enhanced position in their ongoing competition with the European Union, Japan and Russia. Europe in particular is totally dependent on Mid-East oil. As the advanced capitalist countries coalesce into 3 or 4 blocs, the U.S. wants to control the economic lifeblood—oil—throughout the world.
The only Mid-East country that officially welcomed and praised the U.S. invasion was the Israeli government. Of course the U.S. had troops in and launched some of the war from Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In Israel the right wing Likud government still fully supports the U.S. occupation and compares it to its own decades-long occupation of Palestinian land. Now we are seeing the U.S. occupation army employing Israeli type tactics against the Iraqi public. Doors are kicked in during the middle of the night; men and boys are taken off to secret U.S. prisons. Families and children of fugitive resistance fighters are often imprisoned. Homes are being blown up. But the Israelis, even after years of occupation, have not been successful with these terror tactics against the Palestinian resistance. In Iraq, we are already witnessing even more deadly attacks against U.S. troops in the past few months.
Early in the government’s road to this war, some critics argued that President Bush’s war fever was fueled by his father’s personal hatred of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. We now know that George W. Bush planned to wage war against Iraq from his first days in office, long before 9/11 and any other pretext that was later raised. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil’s recent book lays bare that Bush wanted and meant to invade Iraq from his first days in office.
However much any of the above views were the real reasons for this war, now that it continues, two further realities drive it on. The war profiteers, those merchants who profit from death and destruction, are circling like hogs in a feeding frenzy. Well-connected corporations, especially Halliburton and its subsidiaries, are raking in billions of U.S. tax dollars off this war. Every American war has seen some corruption and profiteering, but this pillage and what appears to be actual theft is obscene.
Immediately after 9/11/01, conservative, right wing and police forces seized on the sorrow and worry of the public to begin implementing a massive “Big Brother” police state machine. This included federal and state legislation, executive orders and the creation of new intrusive police structures and practices. The war against Iraq strengthened and speeded up this process. We now truly live in a war and police state. U.S. society is now more militarized than it has ever been. Intrusive police presence and snooping is a daily reality. This is not temporary. Bush, in his 2004 State of the Union speech, made this clear when he called for even more police state powers, all at the expense of people’s privacy and rights. There is a direct correlation between the U.S. state of war and the growing police state all across this country.
What we are witnessing is the emerging new face of U.S. imperialism. The United States has been an imperialist power for a long time. What we are seeing now is a new drive and dynamic to imperialism. With no Cold War or major socialist bloc to contend with, U.S. imperialism has embarked on a more aggressive and dangerous course. The U.S. has essentially declared itself to be the undisputed empire of the world. The more it invades and occupies overseas, the more it will build its police state domestically. These may be stark terms for some to easily accept, but the reality of all this is happening around us right now. Shying away from understanding it or dealing with it only makes us less safe and less free.
The driving force of imperialism is economics. Its methods are economic and political and recently more and more military. There already is a sizable segment of the U.S. public that is opposed to this war. The question that all Americans need to be asked, is to they want to live in an empire? In this election year it’s imperative and possible to ask these questions and to make opposition to this war very visible and powerful.
The fact that there are major anti-war candidates, Dean and Kucinich most clearly, reflects the ambivalence and worry of millions of Americans. Beginning with the March 20th worldwide anti-war mobilization, the Peace, Anti-War and Anti-Imperialist movements can tap into this worry of so many people. A building series of major rallies, as big and dramatic as possible, throughout this year is very feasible. Seriously opposing this imperialist U.S.A. war state and internal police state has its risks, but it is certainly possible and necessary right now. We can impact the short-term reality of the occupation and war in Iraq. More importantly perhaps, we can expose and resist the Bush government’s plan to erect this 21st century U.S. war and police state empire. As a well-worn slogan puts it:
FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE!
Jaan Laaman, Ohio 7 anti-imperialist political prisoner
Walpole Prison, Massachusetts
February 2004
Jaan Laaman (W41514)
P.O. Box 100
South Walpole MA 02071 USA
U.S. War and Occupation of Iraq
by: Tom Manning
My comrade has asked me to write something about “U.S. War and Occupation of IRAQ.” The war has already begun. We could not prevent its occurring. So now we must endeavor to stop its continuing. It has evolved, as wars do, from Attack to Occupation. It has not reached the stage of conquest.
Looking to Roget’s International Thesaurus, Occupation comes under the heading: TAKING!
There, I find a landslide of words that describe what is happening in IRAQ (and Palestine) today. Look it up. You will find words like: appropriation, taking over, takeover,… conquest, occupation, subjugation, enslavement, colonization.
Between Conquest and Occupation, we must insert the word RESISTANCE. Because that is also what is happening in IRAQ (and Palestine) today. Look it up.
Start with RESIST: counteract, hinder, oppose, withstand…. Continue through RESISTANCE and RESISTER: opposition, reaction, ungovernable…. Yes, another landslide of words.
If plodding through all these words seems daunting, imagine, IMAGINE living under the realization of all these words. Day after day.
Stack these words in columns. Side by side. Now compare them. Where do you find yourself among them? Occupier? Resister? I find myself on the side of Resistance. Where do you want history to find you?
I was sent to Vietnam as a teenager. I have been both. Occupier, and Resister. The former troubles me, to this day. The latter enlivens me. Day to day.
Here, with these last words, two things come to mind. “History will absolve me.” Fidel’s statement after an attack on Moncada barracks, 1953. And, “It is Right to Resist.”
WORDS. Language. THAT moved me to think. To act, in my earliest days of becoming a Resister, a Dissident, an Activist, a Revolutionary. The Struggle Continues.
Do the Right Thing!
Tom Manning
10373-016
P.O. Box 1000
Leavenworth KS
66048 USA
War in Iraq - September ‘03
War in Iraq
by Sundiata Acoli
Standing at the crossroads
Yet the outcome is certain
The invader will be driven back
Unable to carry his burden
Shortly if alone
Longer if in coalition
That rebounds worldwide
With a turn of the tide
Not of their own volition
But short or long
The horseman is gone
So the real question is
What are you gonna do
When the war comes home:
Join the fascist last stand
Or the host of hued and
others oppressed mass demands?
Sundiata Acoli
39794-066
P.O. Box 3000
White Deer PA
17887 USA
Why Smack Iraq?
by: Bill Dunne
The U.S. invasion of Iraq was a no-doubt-about-it crime of imperialism. So is the continuing U.S. military occupation of Iraq without even the fig leaf of approval by other imperial powers or their vassals and sycophants. “Shock and awe” inflicted death and destruction on the Iraqi people as well as no few working class American people and elicited revulsion and condemnation from most of the rest of the world’s people.
What prompted the minority ruling elite of the U.S. to leap into this quagmire? What motivated it to accept the huge political costs of such a risky adventure? Was it an altruistic desire to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction? Was it some noble democratic impulse to free the Iraqi people from a vicious dictator and build a shining democratic model state for people in the oppressive autocracies of the region to emulate? Was it a battle in the war on terrorism? Superficial cases have been made for these and other justifications for the U.S. seizure of a sovereign country. Or was it mere greed for Iraqi resources and labor and fat reconstruction contracts as surface events suggest? A deeper look at the circumstances indicates it was something else entirely.
Whatever the Bush regime and the U.S. elites it represents expect to get from this unilateral aggression, the political cost is clearly high. After 11 September 2001, the world had sympathy for the U.S. as the victim of an atrocity. Now, largely due to Bush and Company’s creation and handling of the Iraq crisis, the U.S. is viewed as a bellicose bully, abusing its lone superpower status to take preemptive action contrary to the wishes of its friends, allies and the world community expressed through the United Nations.
Domestically, legions of ordinary working and poor people and even elements of the middle class and traditional supporters of the Republican party are ever more loudly objecting to the waste of lives and wealth and the extent to which the repression is being brought home through more draconian national security laws. The drag on the economy of wasteful military expenditures, which destroy rather than produce wealth, is alienating millions of people adversely affected, a disaffectation that extends even to some among the ruling elite.
The result is increasing disrespect for the institutions of government and those who manipulate them. Bush and the political paradigm he represents, formerly with invulnerable ratings in the electoral charade the ruling class uses to select political leaders, can no longer be so sure of reelection next year. American interests and individuals are less secure abroad, and U.S. influence has declined. And the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate.
The official reasons for the attack on Iraq can be dispensed with easily. There were no weapons of mass destruction. No chemical or biological weapons were used or found. Certainly, such a demonstrably brutal regime as Saddam Hussein’s would have used them when U.S. troops rolled into his country. And were that country’s borders not under intense surveillance to guard against precisely the fallback excuse that the alleged huge stockpiles of these world-threatening weapons were spirited away in the heat of battle? The secret and mobile laboratories alleged as evidence of the existence of chemical and biological toxin production turned out to be non-existent or innocuous, legitimate equipment deliberately misconstrued. And the evidence purported to prove a nuclear weapons program turned out to be a straight-up fraud. Beyond all that, the U.S. is the largest holder of weapons of mass destruction, asserts an inalienable right—yea, duty—to maintain them as a legitimate element of its “defense” policy, is the only country to have used nuclear weapons on people, and has invaded more of its neighbors than Iraq. Hence, it lacks legitimacy to take offensive action to deny others such weapons on a mere allegation of suspicion of their possession.
The notion that the U.S. and particularly under Bush the Second would sink blood and treasure into Iraq to relieve the Iraqis of their oppression and/or give hope of “democratic freedom” to people in a despotic region is laughable. History amply demonstrates that imperialists and particularly the U.S. simply do not do any such thing. Regimes installed and propped up by the U.S. such as those of Pahlavi (the shah) in Iran, Diem and Thieu in Vietnam, Mobutu in the Congo and Pinochet in Chile brought only privation and suffering to the majority of people subject to them.
Even under the neo-imperialist paradigm, exploitation and oppression are rampant as in Guatemala and El Salvador. Imperial powers have learned to exert social control via financial and political manipulation of elites who dominate economic, military and electoral machinery rather than an individual dictator, allowing them to pay lip service to democratic forms—and forms only.
Current domestic policy is another obvious indicator that benevolence toward suffering people played no role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Tax cuts for the rich, attacks on workers’ rights and organization, evisceration of social services such as education and health care, and environmental degradation through revised rules favoring business profits over people all characterize the Bush regime’s agenda. Hundreds of billions cascade into military adventurism, yet money for social services dries up beyond even the traditional Republican trickle-down economics. Massive deficits finance huge and bloated “security” and military expenditures that redistribute wealth and power upward and elevate interest rates and unemployment, increasing political and economic insecurity for everyone outside the ruling elite. Political machinations ensure that money and connections are the determining factors in elections, undermining the appearance of electoral democracy. The drive to create a “national security state” results in ever more exposure of U.S. residents to surveillance, searches and detention by increasingly secretive, militarized and unaccountable police agencies. With such a design for its “own” people, concluding the U.S. ruling class wants to bring freedom and democracy to anyone else is simply ludicrous.
Nor does U.S. conduct in Iraq suggest much concern for weapons of mass destruction or freedom and democracy. U.S. forces raced to secure oil facilities yet failed to protect irreplaceable cultural treasures and nuclear facilities where radioactive materials were stored. They swiftly snatched well over a billion dollars in U.S. currency plus a lot of gold and other valuables, but did not look very soon or hard for the storied chemical and biological weapons. They shoot civilians who demonstrate too hard, kick in people’s doors and manhandle and detain the residents in the name of searching for weapons on the dubious word of snitches, but cannot get the water and electricity operating reliably or ensure other essential services.
Equally ludicrous is the allegation that the Iraqi regime harbored groups engaged in international terrorism or was in any way connected to Al-Qaeda or the attacks on the World Trade Center and pentagon on 11 September 2001. No such terrorists or their bases were found or incriminating documents suggesting such activity unearthed—either before or after the invasion. Further, most of the Iraqi former hierarchy is now in U.S. custody under atrocious conditions and without incentive to withhold the secrets of a dead regime. Moreover, U.S. authorities claim to have captured and to be interrogating numerous “high level” Al-Qaeda shot-callers who, to hear the authorities tell it, have been blabbing a lot about their operations. So why not about links to Iraq, if there were any? Of course, those authorities would look even more mendacious, if possible, if they tried to fly something like that without producing the source and some corroboration. And if the facts on the ground are any indication and the occupation’s own characterization of them is correct, the invasion has dramatically increased, not decreased, acts of “terrorism” against Americans.
Simple greed cannot alone explain the invasion and occupation either, though it certainly plays a role. Sure, “defense” contractors, Haliburton, Kellog, Brown and Root, Bechtel, oil interests and other economic entities well connected to the Bush regime want a cut of billions to be spent on conquest and reconstruction in Iraq. Sure, U.S. oil companies want royalties and the ability to influence markets that pumping Iraqi oil will confer. And sure, labor-intensive industries see an opportunity not only to sell a lot of stuff in Iraq, but also to gain entrée to a cheap labor market and huge new sales market in the Middle East. But those relatively few billions are only change in an 11 trillion dollar economy.
That revenue potential does provide an incentive to get influential individuals who are not architects of the policy behind the policy. And it did provide a superficial rationale for actions that might otherwise appear incomprehensible to people unpersuaded by the weapons-of-mass-destruction and other lies that avoided real investigation.
Given the economic power of the actors behind these desires for financial return and misdirection, however, such goals could be achieved by less costly means than invasion and occupation. A shadowy enemy billed as capable of striking horrifically anywhere, anytime can and did spur massive military and “security” spending. Crony capitalism provides myriad ways for the well-connected to get their snouts in the public trough—infrastructure redevelopment, as the recent blackouts might suggest, for example. Oil rights can be purchased and the costs passed on, providing yet another factor upon which to base market manipulation. And labor and market exploitation rights are also for sale, as demonstrated by the proliferation of sweat shops and penetration of consumer technology around the world.
Without the invasion and occupation, those benefits would have to be competed for and shared with other imperialist powers, particularly the European Union (EU). That competition for economic resources, especially Middle Eastern oil, is a threat to the U.S. capitalist ethos, as opposed to, say, the European. It is also a challenge to the future hegemony of the U.S. as the world’s sole superpower because the competition is not so much about the current selling price of the oil as what can be built with the economic engines it fuels. This economic warfare between the U.S. and EU elites’ versions of imperial capital reached a virtual stalemate in the 80s and 90s, leaving their inter-imperialist rivalry only to be played out by other means.
On the eve of the First Persian Gulf War under Bush the Senior, the EU was poised to make a quantum leap toward political and economic integration on a scale to rival the U.S. The collapse of the Eastern Bloc, raising of the “Iron Curtain” and fall of the wall opened a power vacuum European elites saw as an unprecedented opportunity to expand into vast new markets and sources of inexpensive labor right on European borders. Western European economies were good and buoyed by reduced need for military expenditures and the prospects of exploitation of a region with a developed infrastructure, educated population and a culturally European identity. The EU’s previous drift toward increasing its own integration accelerated and introduction of the key element of a single currency appeared imminent, apparently both motivated and facilitated by EU elites’ expansionism. Former Eastern Bloc countries were clamoring for EU aid and investment, having been sold capitalist mythology, and positioning themselves to reap it through eventual accession into the EU. The EU’s more liberal foreign and domestic policies and practices plus the circumstances lent credence to the notion that that would be sooner rather than later.
The U.S. economy, on the other hand, was relatively moribund, still suffering the ravages of Reaganomics and shortsighted investment decisions that put near-term profits above long-term industrial viability and research and development. It had smaller potential to profitably expand its political and economic sphere of influence. The booming “Asian tigers” had largely sewn up the Far East. Support for Israel limited its options and potential in the Middle East, as did its support for the apartheid regimes in Africa. Latin America was resistant to further U.S. encroachment after decades of grotesque exploitation and oppression by U.S. multinationals and U.S. support for anticommunism and rapacious dictators. These factors and U.S. direct and indirect interventions in Vietnam, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Lebanon, Grenada and Panama gave “colossus of the north” a bad reputation in the developing world not shared by the EU.
The only thing the EU lacked—and the East Asian economies, for that matter, albeit on a longer timetable—to emerge as economic and even, eventually, military superpowers to challenge the U.S. was a secure energy supply. A determining portion of Europe and Asia’s energy needs—specifically, their oil needs—were and still are supplied by the Middle East. Other regions had oil as well, but not enough, and not accessible enough in the short term (the Middle East has about 65% of the world’s known oil reserves). Taking advantage of this Achilles’ Heel with its superior military was the only option left for the U.S. to preserve its superpower hegemony in light of its inability to secure a sufficiently sunny place via economic competition.
Circumstances suggest that the U.S. enticed Iraq into its 1990 annexation of Kuwait. The U.S. had supported Iraq in its war with Iran and otherwise, giving the Iraqi regime reason to believe the U.S. was not unsympathetic to its claims against Kuwait. Kuwait, the argument went, was violating oil production agreements and illegally tapping Iraqi oil fields and, in any event, was rightfully a province of Iraq wrongfully separated by British imperialism’s geopolitical machinations. Nor did U.S. support appear merely historical. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq prior to the invasion of Kuwait testified before congress that when Iraq queried the embassy about Iraq’s grievances with Kuwait, she was instructed to inform the Iraqis that their resolution was a bilateral matter between Iraq and Kuwait.
Saddam Hussein and Company apparently took that from the guarantor of Kuwaiti security as a green light. That the U.S. attitude expressed by its ambassador led him to conclude the U.S. might rattle the saber and make suitably shocked noises but not intervene was borne out by the fact that he could have obviated the war by the simple expedient of organizing an election. Kuwaiti “guest workers” were exploited, oppressed and disenfranchised “foreigners” with few rights who formed the substantial majority of Kuwait residents. Declaring them citizens by even a conservative tenure standard would have ensured a large vote in favor of whatever association with Iraq Saddam the Liberator proposed. Iraqi troops could have been withdrawn and the election would have been squeaky clean by any international standard. The legitimacy of a western invasion and most likely the invasion itself would have evaporated. The U.S. never went so far as to enfranchise the disenfranchised in its own conquests; Iraq thought it didn’t have to, either.
Some among the Europeans may have recognized inter-imperialist rivalry as the primary motivation for the U.S. creation of and drive to solve the problem of Iraq occupying Kuwait. But the EU was caught between a rock and a hard place. Having an acquisitive regime in Iraq in control of both Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil with a powerful military likely to be pumped up by increased oil revenues smack in the middle of the oil patch was not a good prospect for a continent with inadequate oil and no ready alternatives. Having the U.S. there under circumstances similar in relevant ways probably seemed only marginally better. World opinion was solidly against invasion and occupation of smaller neighbors and in favor of the idea of liberating a sovereign nation unjustly and brutally occupied by a regional bully. Using its powerful media apparatus and the same sort of misinformation it would later use in Gulf War II, the U.S. made it virtually impossible not to get with the coalition against a savage tyrant who would throw defenseless sick babies on the floor of a hospital so he could steal their incubators. Refusal to go along would have made the Europeans appear “soft on crime.” Plus, riding in the car and paying for the rhetorical and military gas would ensure some influence at the destination. So it would have been impolitic for the Europeans to precipitate the contradiction by voicing suspicion that the war was really against them.
The outcome of Persian Gulf War I was never in doubt. The U.S.-led, United Nations-sanctioned “coalition” of major imperialist countries, the most industrialized and wealthiest in the world with a few others thrown in for color, fell on an oil autocracy with virtually no industry that had largely squandered its wealth on its elite, repression, its war with Iran and the wrong sort of military. Iraq was evicted from Kuwait and defeated in days.
The U.S. demonstrated not only that that could not have happened without the U.S., but that it and only it dominated the oil patch. The U.S. ran the war and decided when to stop. The U.S. largely dictated the terms of he ceasefire. The U.S. maintained (under UN auspices, of course) a quasi-occupation with no-fly zones, limitations on internal activity and continuous inspections for banned weapons. The U.S. meddled in Iraq’s internal affairs, infiltrating agents, instigating and abandoning rebellions, manipulating its finances and bombing its installations. And the U.S. halted the war short of overrunning all of Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein, undoubtedly to leave the regime a potential threat to world energy supplies the U.S. alone could handle (or not) and to avoid exactly the consequences of occupation it is reaping now.
In the wake of the First Persian Gulf War, European fortunes declined sharply. Dissention stimulated by the war undermined the impetus to integration, already strained by inadequately foreseen implementation problems. Economies deteriorated, adversely impacted both by the costs of the war and a more bearish business climate borne of insecurity in the wake of Iraq. Introduction of the euro, the European common currency, was postponed, ultimately for almost a decade. East Asian economies, most significantly Japan’s, also weakened, making them susceptible to being driven into depression and virtual collapse by speculators. The potential Asian competition for superpower status was barely emerging from shambles by the time of the Second Persian Gulf War under Bush the Junior.
On the eve of the Second Gulf War, however, the EU was again showing signs of accelerated movement toward superpower status. The western economic “boom” of the 90s allowed the economies of the EU member states to grow sufficiently to reinvigorate motion toward the desired economic integration and permit the launch of its common currency, the euro. The new elites in many Eastern European states were able to harmonize their countries to EU economic norms—despite the social costs of doing so—enough to make accession into the EU not merely a dream, but a projection. While U.S. capital also enjoyed the boom, it did not translate for it into a similar potential for economic and political expansion into new areas; its sphere of influence did not realize comparable growth.
The 90s boom also saw intense competition—warfare by other means—between the business paradigms of U.S. and European imperial capital. The dog-eat-dog, bottom line first, maximize shareholder profits above all else U.S. version had the advantage over the more socially-oriented and less predacious (at least internally) EU version. The U.S. ilk’s greater capacity for capital formation (i.e., more exploitive labor relations and stingier social contract), more pliant political establishment and a currency that had become the de facto store of wealth in the world gave U.S. business flexibility to pressure competitors and compete for control of financial and industrial resources in the global capitalist market. However, these advantages were insufficient for it to vanquish the European model and put the U.S. model and elite in the driver’s seat of the new world order of transnational capitalism.
In short, the implosion of the speculative “bubble” that had fueled the western boom led to a bust that again left military advantage the only U.S. edge in confronting the challenge to its superpower status.
Despite having mostly fended off U.S. economic aggression at home, the EU (and, verily, the rest of the world) still had no secure source of sufficient energy outside the Middle East. Perhaps it felt that UN administration of Iraqi oil and relative stability in the region made it unnecessary to shoulder the costs of developing energy independence. And perhaps competition with the U.S. on the capital fronts made it unable to do so.
The U.S. seized on the pretext of 11 September 2001 to launch a “war on terrorism,” into which car it threw Iraq, for exactly the main reason it fomented the First Persian Gulf War: to protect its sole superpower status from a European challenge. It paid lip service to building a coalition of nations to attack Iraq for laudable ends—a coalition it did not want, especially with the EU, and ends it did not really care about because they were not real.
The U.S. practice of coalition building can only be seen as intended to alienate, polarize and anger potential partners. It did so in an arrogant and unilateral way that demanded obeisance to its—and only its—right to take preemptive military action against unspecified challenges. It left room for only followers or, at best, junior partners. It presented a series of superficially attractive but ultimately false rationalizations for the aggression as rallying points. The rationalizations ensured that everyone initially reluctant would look insensitive and cowardly, that eventual recognition of the rationalizations’ falsity would occur unevenly and thus disputatiously, and that the self-serving would have a fig leaf for the other ideological and material reasons they might want to support the U.S. war. And the U.S. insisted on unseemly haste, disparaging the normal course of diplomacy.
The strategy was to inhibit the EU’s motion toward superpower status first by sowing as much suspicion, distrust, division and dissention as possible among its members and second by freezing them out of the spoils of the oil patch while holding open the possibility of individual rewards for support. Playing the liberal against the conservative elements of the European political, social and economic hierarchy was a key tactic. The U.S. induced support for the war from the conservative governments of EU members Britain, Spain and Italy, the countries into which the U.S. business model had made the greatest inroads. Ironically, it was these countries that saw the largest popular demonstrations against the war. The conservative governments in the Eastern European EU aspirants came to power largely in reaction to the failures of former, nominally communist governments and thus were ideologically disposed to such support. They were also susceptible to incentives in badly needed economic aid, coveted military assistance and leverage to ameliorate their supplicant status with the EU. Most of the rest of the world opposed the U.S. invasion, but that helped the U.S. elites’ agenda by enabling them to keep the debate at a boil both to rally “patriots” domestically and prevent the European opponents from capitulating and joining a coalition.
The strategy worked. Vitriolic disputes were engendered among European elites, both within and without the EU. The disagreement over the war rapidly grew beyond it, as news reports of name-calling, failures of cooperation and retaliation in other areas attest. The divisive issue of a future European military force was pushed to greater prominence. Expansion of the euro currency was inhibited, being set back in Britain and rejected in Sweden at least in part because its weaknesses were magnified and its strengths obscured by the war and the debate around it.
The angry wedges driven between elites of the major EU countries set integration efforts back years and perhaps a generation until the current business and political leadership is replaced. The disagreements between EU and prospective EU members stemming from the war will certainly slow the latter’s accession to the EU and their assimilation if and when admitted. In this respect, the Second Persian Gulf War worked better than the first. The very concept of the EU has been undermined, with England, Poland and perhaps other Eastern European countries at least thinking about an Atlantic identity with the U.S., Spain perhaps looking more toward a Greater Hispanic identity, and resurgent nationalism rather than regionalism or internationalism in other areas.
Moreover, the Europeans, aside from Britain—and the rest of the world, for that matter—have no significant presence in Iraq. The U.S. controls everything from agriculture to ziggurats, including the allocation of reconstruction contracts and oil sale and development rights. It recently made clear that it and not its puppet governing council retained that authority. The U.S. has also made clear that it does not intend to cede any of that control despite the billion of dollars and hundreds (thousands if the Iraqis are included) of lives that would be saved by even token concessions that would allow UN and multinational military, construction, social and economic forces to participate in the restoration of Iraq. And the oil autocracies of the region will undoubtedly be more amenable to U.S. desires and less to those of the rest of the world in the region with a military juggernaut more threatening than any Saddam Hussein could ever imagine on their borders. European interests will find it difficult to use their prior imperial and commercial connections in the region to overcome that U.S. advantage.
Whether or not the Bush regime will ultimately be forced to admit the international community and the Iraqis themselves into decision-making any time soon remains to be seen. But its aversion to doing so despite the cost of unilateralism in money and lives and even its own political viability reveals motives beyond the transparent stated objectives. The U.S. ruling class is playing a high-stakes game for incalculable wealth and power in which the scores of even hundreds of billions it is gambling are relatively meaningless. It expects to recoup the economic costs exponentially. It does not care about the suffering engendered by the absence of the social services on which that money could have been spent. It does not care about the lives of proletarians, be they children of the working class or “foreigners,” or even about the lives of a few of its own sons and daughters. And it does not even care about which hands are on the levers of government power, as long as it puts them there and they do its bidding. As quagmire Iraq shows how sticky it can be and pressure from the rest of the world mounts, dropping poll ratings for he Bush regime are just another cost of doing business. The regime is not the ruling class, merely its instrument, and thus expendable.
Successors to Bush the Second and his Imperial Court may try to slip the iron fist back into the velvet glove and the U.S. back into the global fold by saying the right words and cracking Iraq’s door. To whatever degree there may be substance behind the words, the desired damage will have been done. U.S. business, standards, finances and technology and thus U.S. dominance will already have been established in Iraq and will be in the best position to project that dominance into the rest of the region, translating also as exclusion for rivals. And it will have ensured that, barring major changes in the trajectory of world developments, the EU will not emerge as a superpower to challenge U.S. hegemony for at least a generation. Nor will any other country or group.
The foregoing is merely a superficial statement of the case for the proposition that the U.S. war against Iraq is really the new face of inter-imperialist rivalry. Military contests between imperialist powers are prohibitively costly and destructive nowadays. Proxy wars are frequently inconclusive, uncontrollable and fraught with unintended consequences. Economic competition such as that to which the former Soviet Union succumbed cannot always be carried to a definitive conclusion because competitors’ power is not significantly different, and the business cycle may intervene, depriving the contestants of the requisite weaponry. But there is still life in old-line imperialist notions of gunboat diplomacy and conquest, albeit not mainly for the old reasons of access to resources and labor. Those can generally be more readily and less riskily obtained through neo-imperialist tactics of propaganda, subversion and bribery. Control of resources and markets toward controlling competitors’ capital formation capacity by even the few percentage points around the economic tipping point mainly motivates military imperialism’s new incarnation. Presently, the U.S. is the only country that can practice it absolutely and without challenge. The history of empire, however, is that it will not always be.
From the depths of dungeon America, it is difficult to do the research required to make this case that the imperialist U.S. war on Iraq is, in fact, also a war on Europe with detailed chapter and historical verse and statistical precision. My research has been limited to the few resources available in short order from a prison cell. It has been augmented by reading and listening to the news from a variety of sources over time as well as the occasional saved article. And the analysis has been tested and refined through much discussion with knowledgeable and interested, if not academically rigorous, disputants. Hence, if the support for this point or that herein seems unduly vague or overly broad or otherwise incapable of sustaining the conclusion, investigate it. 
Whatever details you might find lacking or even inaccurate (and for any you find thus, I apologize and plead the mitigating circumstances of faulty memory and limited capacity), I think you will be more convinced of the accuracy of the conclusion at the end of your investigation. And do not merely take my words for the conclusion: unless you can articulate the reasons for the positions you hold, they might have been planted by someone else—whose interests might not be compatible with yours.
Bill Dunne (10916-086)
P.O. Box 091001
Atwater CA
95301 USA
The Man-Hunters of Task Force 121
from Revolutionary Worker #1223, December 21, 2003
http://www.rwor.org/
The U.S. military has created a highly secret operation of “hunter-killers” called Task Force 121—assigned to kill the leaders of Iraqi’s resistance.
Journalist Seymour Hersh (New Yorker, Dec. 15) reports this Task Force 121 is a rapid-deployment assassination operation built out of elite Special Operations forces from the Army, Navy and Air Force. The death squads have CIA officers officially “attached,” and come with a large accompanying “conventional force” to seal off areas while the killing goes down. Operations are already reported in Iraq and Syria.
The unit is patterned on similar Israeli units that hunt down and assassinate leaders of Palestinian resistance. It is also inspired by the notorious “Operation Phoenix” where CIA death squads murdered and tortured tens of thousands of people to “neutralize the infrastructure” of South Vietnam’s National Liberation Front.
Hersh writes: “According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq. Israeli commandos are expected to serve as ad-hoc advisers—again, in secret—when full-field operations begin.” The U.S. high command denies Israeli involvement and an Israeli official told Hersh: “Both governments have decided at the highest level that it is in their interest to keep a low profile on U.S.-Israeli cooperation.”
It has come out that a key figure in creating these death squads has been Special Forces veteran Lt. Gen. William Boykin. Boykin became notorious in October for publicly describing recent U.S. military operations as a Christian war against Satan and Islam. He told audiences that George W. Bush got to the White House despite losing the popular vote in 2000, because god himself wanted Bush in power. The Pentagon refused to sanction Boykin for these openly Christian-fascist statements—as Boykin’s Task Force 121 pressed ahead with this unfolding campaign of assassinations.
Danger During the 2004 Election Year
by: Jaan Laaman
Conspiracy theories of history or current events, while often intriguing, primarily lead us astray. Such views get people so concentrated on the "secret schemes and cabals," that we do not recognize or disregard the real problems and enemies in front of us. Having just said all this, let me now raise a rather paranoid possibility.
Early in this 2004 election year, the Democrats vs. the Republicans rhetoric is already loud and negative. Additionally, there are very real popular concerns, especially about the Bush government's invasions and wars and its corresponding growing police state within the U.S. This year we will see large demonstrations and a growing opposition to George Bush and his government. This will be fueled by the unending reality that more and more U.S. occupation troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will come home in coffins, and even more will come back crippled and maimed.
The President's poll ratings have been dropping. Now that all the original reasons for the invasion and war in Iraq have been proven false, there is a growing mistrust of Bush and his government among more and more Americans. The government has not admitted to its mistakes or misstatements. In fact, George Bush has called for even stronger police state laws and new U.S. troops are being rotated in to occupy Iraq.
What we have witnessed, particularly this winter, is an increasing use of alarms and warnings of danger by the government. The federal color-coded alert warning level was recently elevated for several weeks. Shortly after that, many international flights were grounded, halted or banned because of new government warnings. And just recently much of the U.S. Senate was shut down because of a ricin-poisoned letter that was found in the office of Republican Leader Frist.
All of these events were given huge exposure in the media. Interestingly, each of these official warnings and alerts came on the heels of new critical revelations about the government. The U.S. body count in Iraq passed 500, new terror warnings. Former Treasury Secretary O'Neil's book about Bush's pre-9/11/01 plan to invade Iraq came out; the alert levels were raised. U.S. weapons hunter David Kay resigned and admitted there were no weapons in Iraq, and ricin is found in the Senate. These are just the most recent three events. They could all be coincidences, but at the least it is clear that the timing of government warnings and their release to the media is used to counteract any mounting criticism of Bush and his government.
We need to keep alert to the timing of these warnings and other ongoing news and events. More importantly, as this presidential campaign heats up and if Bush is doing poorly by this summer, the one thing that would give him this election would be a significant attack against the U.S., especially here in America. With the proven deceptive nature of this administration, on top of the murderous history of the CIA and U.S. imperialism in the past 50 years, it is not simply paranoid thinking to worry about an attack being "allowed" to happen, or even "engineered" by some secret U.S. cop or military unit.
Yes, admittedly this is a paranoid worry, but we are dealing with a government and system that easily and repeatedly lied and misled people in this country and in the world as it launched its war on Iraq. The question to ask is, do you
feel there are elements in this government that would allow or create an attack against the U.S., to win this election? At the very least, this kind of question needs to be asked. Hopefully in the process of many people raising it, we would also begin to provide some measure of defense against such a despicable act.
Jaan Laaman
The Way of History
by: Tom Manning
I hear youngsters refer to the neighborhood – the “hood,” as their way “around the way” and I smile and reflect on how things keep coming around, in circles – a little bit different – a lot the same. When I was a kid, that’s the way it was “around my way,” “over your way.”
“Where you been all day?” – “Over Dougies way.” “Don’cha ever come home ’n eat? Let us know where you’re at?” – “It’s OK, his granmother made chicken soup with rice ‘n leaves in it - from real chicken.” “Go washup . . .”
History repeats itself like Yogi Berra said – “dejavu all over again.”
I’ve got a close friend who comes from the same way as I, or rather, she comes from around my way. She spent a good part of her life as a jury consultant. Picking juries for the defense, in capital cases – and now, she’s working with young kids who are in, or headed for, trouble. She’s trying to make it so they don’t ever have to think about picking a jury.
For the kids – she asked me to write a few words about ‘Nam, in the impending time of war. That was some weeks ago, and it kind of shut me down. How do I compare Vietnam to Desert Storm? But now the war is no longer impending, and for those kids tricked into going over there (“over there, over there . . .”) it must now seem never ending. Long nights and longer days. [In ‘Nam we did one year, more or less depending on your misfortune or luck. I did 18 months. “Someone will say it lasts but a year, three times four months; I say those are days and nights that are endless. “Everyday – twelve hours, every night – seven hundred minutes, every minute – sixty seconds, each second with its load of pain and suffering.” - - written in Polish by an unknown Jewish girl found at Auschwitz.]
There are great pictures out of this war. The New York Times has a “special” war section now. Bigger than their Sunday & Monday sport sections. And this “special” war section has a color center photo spread . . . with pictures that the recruiters are gonna love. [B1 (page1) Sunset at Najaf; page B8 (centerspread) “Marines advance between houses. . . ] And now the Christian Science Monitor has gotten into the big, color center photo spread act (3/27/03). But their pictures, to me, are more reminiscent of ‘Nam. Look at the face of this kid in the convoy picture, “Road to Baghdad” (this ain’t Bing Crosby & Co.). He looks like the typical “New Meat.” FNG, fucking new guy, clean uniform, fresh shave & haircut, trying to look stoic, but the emotions coming through is anything but stoic, or static. It is a realization coming through that says, “this ain’t anything like what they told me back in North Carolina” – this ain’t anything like what NBC/GE told you kid.
Ben Affleck could play this kid, but wait. This ain’t no fiction. That shit coming out of the whitehouse ain’t fiction. It’s lies. There is a difference. Back to the pictures . . .
People (civilians) taking cover in caves (not tunnels?), people on the road in their traditional clothing with bundles of belongings on their backs and smoke billowing from their houses in the background. Yeh, this is looking familiar now, eh? Villagers herded into the center of their hamlet or homestead by U.S. infantrymen, some hunched in fear. Some on their knees, one looking and pointing in defiance [Christian Science Monitor, Thursday 3/27/03, pages 6&7]. Oh, Oh! Doesn’t he know about My Lai [U.S. massacre of Vietnamese civilians during Vietnam War]. But then, why should he? They were just living their lives when history came to visit. That thing that keeps coming ‘round, repeating itself.
The gov’t and media talking head(s) keep(s) crying about the deception, the rouse, the low-down dirty trick of hiding behind a white flag, then opening up on the enemy, instead of surrendering. But, how else do you do an ambush when you have no bush? When you live in a desert country that has been ambushed by the lies and armies of daddy bush and baby bush. Yeh, these people have got bushes now, but not the right kind. No olive branches come with these bushes. If there were any olive branches here, Ariel Sharon will be right along with a bulldozer, and god bless Rachel Corrie, and the students of Evergreen State College who invited Mumia Abu Jamal to be their commencement speaker. Remember? And god bless Kathy Kelly who is somewhere in Baghdad with a soul that must be embedded with Rachel’s and all those people who put their lives where their heart is – With the People.
The United States lived and killed by the ambush in Vietnam (along with Search & Destroy Patrols).
Every night – ambush, “L” shaped configuration, or formations of men hunkered down in the bush, in their ponchos, in the dark, in the rain, in their thoughts, till someone walked into their kill zone. “What the fuck! He walked into the kill zone didn’t he?!”
So don’t tell me about white flags in the desert. They are just little white lies in the scheme of things, inside the big lie that comes from the whitehouse, for big oil, big capital gone international. For Imperialism.
So god bless the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, or in a couple of years, or less, Iran & Syria. And those unfortunate enough to live on top of that oil & gas in the Caspian Sea region, and the people of the Balkans, and Nigeria, and South & Central America. Hands off Venezuela! Keep your lies off Cuba! U.S. Out of Columbia! To all the people of those lands that the U.S.A. wants in it’s covetous hands.
Get up! Stand up! Grab your white flag & AK. Go to the bush. Go to the Mountains. Breathe in the fire on the volcanoes of Morazan Province in El Salvador. Burn away the fear and the lies – by whatever means necessary. Wipe the smoke from your eyes, smash the mirrors of big media. Bring the passion of real liberation to the streets. Free Palestine! Up the Rebels! Venceremos! Amandla! Take back your Freedom. Take it on home for human dignity and self-determination – Che Lives!
Love, Tom
Post Script to Essay by Tom Manning
“Here comes the sun – little darlin – it’s been a long lonely winter”
Thinking about those long nights in the bush – in the rain, and more recently, long nights in prison cells. Often times that sun was a rescuer, and as often - not.
“Up in the morning – out on the job –work like the devil for my pay – that lucky ole sun – got nothing to do – but roll around in heaven all day.”
Nice song about hard times.
“Dawn came on us like a betrayer, it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction.” - Primo Levi, Survival at Auschwitz
Many a time I’ve lain in a dark cell, anticipating, knowing that the new day (you often don’t see any sun – outside) just lights on at 6am, or the next shift of guards, was gonna bring trouble . . .
The children of Iraq, who hope and pray for a new day, are being terrorized by the night, when the bombs come. When their teeth and their bones and their nerves and their dreams are shattered, jarred, startled, smashed, shocked . . . who ever thought of that phrase – shock and awe? It’s not just the ones in the muddy boots who should be dragged before a world court. It should be the ones in the air conditioned, sparklingly clean offices first. The ones with the dirty minds.
Political Prisoners in the United States
by: Jaan Laaman
There are about 100 political prisoners held in various prisons across America. These women and men are listed and recognized by numerous Human Rights, Legal Defense, and progressive/socialist organizations as political prisoners. These people all come from the popular social justice and national liberation movements within the U.S. of the past 30 years—specifically from the Civil Rights/Black Power/New African Liberation struggles, the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, Indigenous Peoples survival struggles, anti-imperialist/anti-war movements, anti-racist/anti-fascist struggles, the Women’s Movement, social and economic justice struggles, and the environmental movement. They are Black, white, Latino and Native American. Most of these political prisoners have been in captivity since the 1970s and 80s. Some were convicted on totally fabricated charges, others for nebulous political conspiracies or acts of resistance. All received outrageously large sentences for their political beliefs or actions in support of these beliefs.
Additionally there are thousands of revolutionary minded politically conscious prisoners in U.S. jails. Many of these are people who became more politically aware and active once they landed in prison. A lot of these prisoners also get singled out for extra harsh and restrictive treatment, like the political prisoners. Since September 2001, the U.S. has also imprisoned hundreds of Arab and Muslim visitors to this country, as well as some Islamic citizens and residents.
The U.S. government likes to deny that it holds political prisoners. The punitive, restrictively harsh conditions of confinement, often in special “control unit type” prisons, that the political prisoners face day in, day out, decade after decade, exposes and refutes this government myth. Not only does America hold political prisoners, but they are being held under longer sentences than any kind of prisoners, anywhere in the world! Despite this, these women and men remain committed to their communities, movements and people. As best as they can, through their voices and very lives, they continue to uphold the politics of justice, equality and liberation, especially for the poor and working class people throughout the world. Political prisoners in the United States want and need your awareness, support and help.
The following are organizations that do support work for political prisoners in the U.S.:
Jericho Movement
P.O. Box 650
New York NY 10009 USA
www.thejerichomovement.com
jericho98@usa.net
Partisan Defense Committee
P.O. Box 99
Canal Street Station
New York NY 10013-0099 USA
Anarchist Black Cross Federation
Montreal ABCF-SG
2035 St. Laurent Boulevard
Montreal QC H2X 2T3 Canada
www.montrealabcf.org
montrealabcf@ziplip.com
Global Day of Action Against War and Occupation: March 20, 2004
On March 20, 2004, the first anniversary of the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq, people in cities around the world will join together to demand: "End the Occupation - Bring the Troops Home NOW!" We will demonstrate on March 20 to support the right of the Iraqi people to self-determination without condition. Since the invasion began, tens of thousands of Iraqi people have been killed. Thousands of U.S. and British soldiers have been killed or wounded. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is part and parcel of the administration's larger colonial project targeting the people of the Middle East. While the Bush administration spends $2 billion per week to occupy Iraq, it spends $15 million each day to support Israel's war against the Palestinian people.
We will demonstrate on March 20 to overturn the "USA Patriot" Act, and to end the repression directed at Arab American, South Asian, Muslim and immigrant communities. We will defend the right to free speech and oppose Bush's and Ashcroft's war on the Bill of Rights. We will demonstrate on March 20 to demand an end to the Bush administration's "Endless War" plans for global domination. We stand for an end to U.S. intervention, occupation and threats against Korea, Colombia, Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Syria, the Philippines, Haiti and everywhere.
On April 20, 2002, 100,000 people marched in an historic demonstration in Washington DC under the banner "Free Palestine." Six months later, on October 26, 2002, hundreds of thousands demonstrated against the pending war of aggression against Iraq. On January 18, February 15-16, March 15, March 22, April 12 and most recently October 25, 2003, tens of millions of people went into the streets around the world to say no to the Bush administration's war drive. This is a monumental struggle waged by the people of the world who seek self-determination, justice and peace. Global solidarity is the centerpiece of the new mass movement that has emerged to counter the forces of militarism and colonialism. The outcome of this struggle will impact on generations to come.
It is important for all of us outside to bring the vibrant voices of those inside prison into the streets with us on March 20, and continue resisting war and imperialism every day!
For more information about events and meeting times in your area, visit these sites:
International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism): www.internationalanswer.org
Stop the War Coalition: www.stopwar.org.uk
StopWar.ca: www.stopwar.ca
United for Peace and Justice: www.indymedia.org