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Get the Hell Out of Afghanistan and Iraq
– And Stay Out! From Ukraine to Middle East: U.S. Imperialism Strikes Out Instigating Ethnic/Religious War in the Name of “Democracy” After the February coup d’état that installed a Ukrainian nationalist/fascist junta in Kiev, its U.S. and European backers were thrown for a loop by Russia’s swift and bloodless takeover of Crimea, to the applause of the local population. Kiev’s military offensive against pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine provoked massive popular opposition. Now with Ukraine coming apart at the seams, suddenly Iraq appears to be disintegrating as well, as the sectarian Shiite regime loses ground to Sunni Islamist jihadis. The quagmire in which Washington finds itself is of its own making: U.S. rulers have pursued a bipartisan policy of promoting ethnic and religious war in order to maintain world domination. The arrogant Yankee imperialists sowed the wind, and now they are reaping the whirlwind. In Ukraine, internationalist communists recognize the right to autonomy and self-determination of the Russian-speaking regions and defend the anti-Kiev rebellion while opposing both Ukrainian and Russian nationalism. In Iraq, U.S. troops must be opposed while supporting none of the contending factions. Everywhere we fight for socialist revolution. From Ukraine to Middle East: U.S. Imperialism Strikes Out (20 June 2014) Imperialist Chief Obama: Deeper Into the Quagmire Defeat U.S. War on Afghanistan and Iraq! On December 1, President Barack Obama officially announced a massive escalation of the U.S. war on Afghanistan, tripling the number of American military personnel there since Obama took office. This move marks a decision by Washington to continue the colonial occupation of Afghanistan indefinitely, and with it the bloody slaughter of the Afghan people. Obama’s claim that he would “begin the transfer” of U.S. forces by mid-2011 was just sucker bait for gullible liberals. “Afghanistan Is Now Obama’s War,” proclaimed the media from New York to London to Mumbai. But Afghanistan has been the Democrats’ war since the moment it was launched, in September 2001, and together with the war on Iraq, it is a bipartisan imperialist war. No one in Washington thinks the Afghan puppet army will be able to handle the Taliban. The actual U.S. strategy is not to defeat the Taliban but to weaken it enough so that elements of the Islamists can be brought into a political deal. It is striking that in the United States, a majority of the population is turning against the war even though there hasn’t been a major national antiwar march in more than two years – ever since the start of the last presidential election campaign. At protests following Obama’s announcement of more troops to Afghanistan, organizers carefully avoided any signs mentioning the president by name. Our Internationalist contingent, in contrast, carried signs including, “Hey Obama, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today? Defeat Imperialist Slaughter in Afghanistan, Iraq.” Defeat U.S. War on Afghanistan and Iraq! (December 2009) The Lynching of Saddam Hussein U.S. Rips Apart Iraq The execution of former Iraqi strong man Saddam Hussein on December 30, ordered by a puppet court orchestrated by the U.S. occupiers, was a hideous display of imperialist barbarism reminiscent of the Middle Ages. It was unadorned state murder carried out on the orders of the conquerors who have subjugated the oil-rich and strategically important Near Eastern country. It may also be a watershed in the history of Iraq, marking the “tipping point” after which it spirals irrevocably downward into a vortex of sectarian and communal strife.
Who Gave Butchers of My Lai, Torturers of
Abu Ghraib License to Kill?
What an Obscenity! U.S. Imperialist Mass Murderers Execute Capitalist Dictator Hussein The imperialist press reports that the execution of Saddam Hussein is imminent. Saddam was a capitalist butcher and brutal dictator. While U.S. rulers use this as a battle cry for their imperialist invasion and colonial occupation of Iraq, many of Hussein's most heinous crimes were carried at the behest of, and sometimes on direct orders from, Washington. What an obscenity – the world’s biggest war criminals, the torturers of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, claiming the “right” to hang Hussein after a sham trial that even the imperialist “human rights” groups denounced as a travesty! Imperialist Mass Murderers Execute Capitalist Dictator Hussein (29 December 2006) U.S. Divide-and-Rule Politics Provoke Sectarian Conflict Colonial “Constitution” Farce in Iraq On October 15, Iraqis are being called to vote in a referendum on a “constitution” intended to serve as a façade to disguise U.S. colonial rule. Under the phony charter, Muslim women will be subjected to sharia (Islamic law), depriving them of rights won almost a half century ago and formalizing their subjugation. Following the classic imperialist formula of “divide and rule,” the U.S. has consciously sought to establish a Shiite ascendancy in Iraq. Now this could backfire, as Sunni Arabs see the system stacked against them and increase support for the tenacious insurgency. Even conservative Iraq war “hawks” worry that the constitution could “deal a death blow to Iraq,” creating an Iraqi Kurdistan in the north and a de facto “Shiastan” in the south. Sunni Arabs overwhelmingly boycotted the January colonial elections. This time around various Sunni bourgeois parties and religious figures are calling to vote “no” in the referendum. They are only angling for a better deal with the imperialist occupiers. Trotskyists, in contrast, are for active boycott of the colonial referendum and for driving the U.S. imperialists out of Iraq. Colonial “Constitution” Farce in Iraq (12 October 2005) Drawing the Class Line – What Program to Defeat the War?
Drive U.S. Imperialists Out of
Iraq! United States imperialism has dug
itself into a big hole in Iraq, and keeps
digging deeper. Try as it might, the Pentagon
has been unable to defeat the growing
insurgency. Each new puppet government is as
discredited and impotent as its predecessor.As
the casualties mount, war weariness has been
growing in the U.S. population. The
Iraq war is clearly unpopular, but that hasn’t
stopped it.The “strategy” of the overwhelming
majority of the left is to build an
ever-larger popular-front antiwar movement, to
hook up with growing bourgeois defeatism. Liberal
and reformist “peace” groups seek a different foreign policy for imperialism and different
priorities “at home.” Revolutionaries seek to
defeat the imperialist system that produces
endless war, poverty and racism. The
Internationalist Group and League for the
Fourth International warn that pacifist
parades will not and cannot stop the
imperialist war machine. The capitalist
warmongers can be defeated, by mobilizing the
power of the international working class.
Drive
U.S. Imperialists Out of Iraq! (15 July 2005)
Boycott Colonial Occupation Election in Iraq! Battered by a raging insurgency that has engulfed central and northern Iraq, the U.S. imperialists are hoping that a bogus “election” on January 30 can offer them a respite. This is not in any sense a “democratic” vote, even seen through the perverted prism of bourgeois electoralism in which capitalist money men cast the decisive votes. This rigged ballot is an attempt by the American butchers of Falluja and torturers of Abu Ghraib to legitimate their bloody occupation and destruction of Iraq. The January 30 farce should be actively boycotted by all opponents of colonial rule, in an effort to smash this “electoral” façade for U.S. terrorist rule. If a sectarian/communal civil war results, it will be the direct result of American policies. What’s needed instead is a united uprising of Iraqi toilers to drive out the U.S./UK imperialists and their stooges. Boycott Colonial Occupation Election in Iraq! (24 January 2005) Bipartisan Massacre: Aftermath of War Elections The Rape of Falluja: U.S. War Crime After the American “terror war elections” came the post-election U.S. terror attack in Iraq. George Bush figured he would celebrate his reelection with a bang: send the Marines into the Iraq rebel stronghold of Falluja. That would show the world that he means business. The Pentagon’s first rule in its terrorist “war on terror” is now hit the hospitals first: that way there will be no statistics about women and children killed, no pictures of maimed bodies, no medical care for the insurgent or civilian wounded. In short order, the U.S. bombed the new Hai Nazal Hospital, stormed Falluja General Hospital and bombed the Falluja Central Health Clinic. The attack on Falluja was a bipartisan massacre, which had the support of both major parties of American capitalism. During the U.S. presidential election campaign, Democratic candidate John Kerry accused Bush of backing down from the assault on Falluja last April. Now the liberals are calling for sending in 40,000 more U.S. soldiers to keep the Iraqis down. In this war, class-conscious workers the world over have a side: with the Iraqi people against the imperialist attackers and their colonial occupation. It is a matter of elementary class principle to stand for defense of Iraq, and Afghanistan, and all the targets of U.S. and British imperialism, and to fight for the defeat of the imperialists. The Rape of Falluja: U.S. War Crime (2 December 2004) Rebellion Against Colonial
Occupation of Iraq
The Hideous Face
of U.S. Imperialism in IraqSince the beginning of April, Iraq has been convulsed by a rebellion that has extended to practically all the cities in the center and south of the country. Overcoming historic divisions which had been fanned by the imperialists since the time of British colonial rule, Muslims of both Sunni and Shiite rites drew closer to fight against a common enemy: the invaders headed by the United States. Among the Pentagon brass, the conviction is spreading that in its present contours the ongoing war in Iraq is “unwinnable.” The League for the Fourth International has called since before the beginning of the imperialist invasion for the defense of Iraq and the defeat of the occupation forces, as we did in Afghanistan as well, the previous target of the U.S.’ terrorist “war on terror.” The LFI has insisted that every blow by the Iraqi people landed against its bloody colonial rulers and the occupation armies is a blow on behalf of the exploited and oppressed the world over. At the same time, we stress that it is necessary to organize independently of both Sunni and Shiite religious fanatics, and to be ready to defend the working people, women and minorities against them. It is the duty of class-conscious workers and opponents of imperialism throughout the world to mobilize their power to bring the U.S. war machine to a grinding halt. Rebellion Against Colonial Occupation of Iraq (25 May 2004) Torture American-Style It was the photos that got them. The pervasive torture, the humiliation, dehumanization and sexual degradation of prisoners, the gratuitous beatings, the rapes, the outright murders, dozens of them, that took place at U.S. prisons in Iraq didn’t faze the Pentagon or the White House. In fact, from Guantánamo to Baghdad, the use of “aggressive” interrogations was approved right up the chain of command. The U.S. imperialists set out to enslave Iraq. So after slaughtering thousands with the Pentagon’s high-tech weaponry they grind it in by trying to humiliate their subjects. As the My Lai massacre came to symbolize U.S. devastation of Vietnam, the torture at Abu Ghraib prison now sums up the oppressive U.S. occupation of Iraq. From “Operation Phoenix” in Vietnam to “Operation Condor” in South America, the U.S. has used torture and trained its puppet armies in the most scientific techniques. Calling on Bush and Rumsfeld to apologize for Iraq torture is like calling on Hitler and Göring to say they're sorry for the Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews. With the occupation forces hard-pressed to put down rebellion against colonial rule in Iraq, the outrage over the torture revelations must be used to defeat U.S. imperialism and its flunkies. Torture American-style (10 May 2004) Torturer Is Guard at Prison Where Mumia Abu-Jamal held (6 May 2004) Darius Rejali, Forced to Stand: An Expert Torture (30 April 2004) Drive the Imperialists Out of Iraq, Afghanistan! Drive the Zionists Out of the West Bank, Gaza! Sink U.S. Imperialism in the Quicksands of the Near East! The imperialist occupiers of Iraq are taking a pounding lately, and that is a very good thing for the vast mass of humanity. Every blow struck by the Iraqi people against their bloody U.S. colonial masters and the occupation armies is a blow on behalf of the exploited and oppressed of the world. In all their voluminous contingency plans, the Pentagon war planners didn’t prepare for guerrilla insurgency with mass popular support. That is what they now have on their blood-soaked hands in Iraq. The widespread opposition has greatly demoralized the occupation troops, and as U.S. casualties mount (400 dead and several thousand wounded so far), so does discontent on the “home front.” Of course, there is no mention in the media of the more than 15,000 Iraqis slaughtered during the U.S./British invasion and the thousands killed since then. The imperialist war on Iraq and Afghanistan is at the same time a capitalist war on working people and the oppressed in the imperialist countries. Impotent anti-war marches pushing for a more liberal foreign policy will not put an end to this “war without end.” What’s needed is international socialist revolution to sweep away the imperialist system of war, poverty and racism. Sink U.S. Imperialism in Near East Quicksands (5 November 2003) Defeat Colonial Occupation of Iraq U.S. Imperialism Get the Hell Out! The conquest of Iraq was a display of the supreme arrogance of the imperialist rulers of the United States who fancy themselves masters of the world. Baghdad aflame and in ruins is the gory image of imperialist barbarism. As Bush and Blair strut the world stage imitating Spanish conquistadors or Roman emperors, they talk of spreading “democracy” as colonialists a century ago spoke of their “civilizing mission.” Above all, the invasion was about securing U.S. domination of an imperialist “New World Order” which would reign supreme over the planet. Antiwar demonstrations were enormous, involving millions of protesters, but these “popular front” protests were dominated by bourgeois pressure politics, and the warmongers in Washington and London were impervious to pressure. Inside Iraq, the most aggressive political forces have been those of religious reaction. The Islamists feed off the desperation and abject poverty of the masses of the Near East and the obscurantism sponsored by the oil-rich reactionary regimes installed by the imperialists. The fight to drive the U.S./British colonial occupiers from Iraq must be championed by the working class throughout the world. International socialist revolution, extending to the imperialist centers, is vital to the emancipation of the toilers of the East from colonial and semi-colonial slavery. Defeat Colonial ccupation of Iraq (31 May 2003) After U.S. Destruction of Baghdad... Obscene Victory Party After the U.S. bombed the center of the Iraqi capital to smithereens, opened the gates to looters, stood by as the National Museum, National Library and dozens of hospitals were sacked, just as American troops were carrying out massacres, shooting point-blank into crowds of protesters, George Bush decided to hold a victory party. The commander in chief of U.S. imperialism jetted out to the USS Lincoln for a dramatic tailhook landing, as hundreds of uniformed spectators cheered. The press repeated the theme of Top Gun. But haven’t we seen this somewhere before? Yes, this is a remake of the opening scene from Leni Reifenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, the infamous propaganda film the 1934 Nazi party congress, starring Adolph Hitler. Triumph of the Will 2 (7 May 2003) Bush’s Blitzkrieg Runs Into Iraqi Resistance Defend Iraq! Defeat U.S. Imperialism! Class War Against Imperialist War! The opening salvos of the U.S. invasion of Iraq were supposed to “decapitate” the Iraqi leadership and shock the army and population into submission. On Day One of the war, March 20, tens of thousands of U.S. and British troops streamed north across the Kuwaiti border. The mouthpieces of the American empire were exultant: the U.S. attack, modeled on Hitler’s concept of “lightning war” (Blitzkrieg), was “on schedule.” But by Day Three the U.S. expeditionary corps had run into an unexpected storm of resistance. The Iraqis did not lie down before the U.S. military juggernaut, and instead began hitting the invaders’ vulnerable supply lines. Before long, Operation Cakewalk was mired in the mud and sands of south central Iraq. But the Iraqis must not fight alone. With the invasion under way, workers strikes against the war are urgently needed, particularly in the imperialist countries – not ritual work stoppages and a parade but mobilizing proletarian power against the imperialist war machine and the capitalist governments waging the war. Bush's Blitzkrieg Runs Into Iraqi Resistance (28 March 2003) Mass Murderers Bush and Blair Bomb Baghdad Defend Iraq! Class War Against Imperialist War! Mobilize Workers’ Power for Defeat of Bloody U.S. Imperialist Aggression! For Strikes Against the War! No Police State! Build a Revolutionary Workers Party! On March 19, U.S. president George Bush Jr. launched the long-announced invasion of Iraq. The huge expeditionary force assembled by the United States and Britain in the Arab/Persian Gulf is on the march. The sociopathic mass murderers in the White House and Pentagon are raining bombs on Baghdad. In this war of imperialist rape and conquest, working people and the oppressed around the world have a side. The Internationalist Group/U.S. and League for the Fourth International call to mobilize workers power in defense of semi-colonial Iraq and for the defeat of the imperialist butchers who are laying waste to the besieged Near Eastern country. Millions have protested against this obscene war, but pacifist peace crawls, no matter how large, will not stop the imperialist warmongers. Civil disobedience is ultimately a futile appeal to the “conscience” of the capitalist murderers. Their butchery can only be stopped by mobilization of a greater power, that of the international proletariat that has the strength and social position to bring the war machine to a grinding halt. All-out workers mobilization is called for to defeat the capitalist rulers and their war. Mass Murderers Bush and Blair Bomb Baghdad (20 March 2003) (espaňol) Los carniceros Bush y Blair bombardean Bagdad (20 de marzo de 2003) Defeat U.S. Imperialism! Defend Iraq! For Class War Against the Imperialist War! The imperialist rulers of the United States are gearing up to carry out a horrendous slaughter in Iraq. Around the world several million people have marched against war on Iraq. Yet innumerable peace parades haven’t fazed the cold-blooded killers who run this country. Neither have fatuous debates in the UN Security Council. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International have called for workers action against the war on Iraq, including labor strikes and boycotting war materiel. In contrast, the bulk of the left is intent on building a bigger, better and “broader” popular-front antiwar coalition – looking to the liberals rather than to the working class. Ultimately, the only way imperialist war can be eliminated is not through endless “antiwar movements” with bourgeois politicians but through international socialist revolution led by a Trotskyist Fourth International.For class war against the imperialist war! 14 January 2003)
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