Contribution to the 13th
International Communist Seminar
Brussels, 2-4 May 2004
www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org
Prepared by John Catalinotto, Workers World Party--USA
A year ago on May Day, U.S. President George Bush landed in full triumph on the flight deck of the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier. He was decked out in his pilot's uniform. Under a banner reading, "Mission Accomplished," he announced that major combat was over in Iraq.
He, his cronies in the administration from the "Wolfowitz cabal," his junior partners Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi and Jose Maria Aznar, believed that "shock and awe," had smashed and subdued the Iraqi people. At the time the entire U.S. corporate media, almost every single one the ruling class politicians from both parties and all the leaders of banking and industry were cheering on the conquest of Iraq.
How things have changed. Already by summer, sporadic Iraqi resistance was making life difficult for the U.S. occupation. By mid-April, 2004, this resistance that seemed to start out divided by religion and region had already developed and spread so that the world was beginning to think of it as the Iraqi national liberation movement.
The theme of this seminar is "The strategy and tactics of the struggle against global U.S. imperialist war." Well the heroes and heroines of Falluja and Najaf are on the front lines of that struggle. U.S. imperialism may open another massive military assault. It can still cause much suffering. But Washington's policies have already been exposed as politically bankrupt.
I'm sure others here at the seminar will discuss in more detail events in Iraq and developments within the resistance and its political leadership. We will restrict ourselves to just a few comments. As communists organizing within the United States, we must take the question of self-determination of oppressed nations seriously. With regard to Iraq, this means that our responsibility is to do our best to get U.S. imperialism out of Iraq and off the backs of the Iraqis. We will attempt to mobilize the working class and youth of the U.S., including the troops, to end the occupation. We will mobilize with the same intensity regardless which political force leads Iraq's national liberation struggle. Our best intervention as communists in the United States will be to show that communists wage the most resolute and the most effective battle in solidarity with those fighting to drive the imperialists out of their country.
CHANGES WITHIN THE U.S. RULING CLASS ESTABLISHMENT
Probably of most interest to the comrades here are developments within the United States itself, both between ruling-class factions and within the workers' and anti-war movements.
The major establishment press in the U.S., including the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, are currently filled with criticism of the Bush administration. Pundits who once praised the "neo-con" cabal in the White House are now mocking them as inept fools. Two administration insiders, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and former National Security Official Richard Clarke, and Bob Woodward, the reporter that exposed Nixon's Watergate scandal 30 years ago, wrote best-selling books exposing the administration's fixation on attacking Iraq before and just after September 11, 2001.
This dissent is taking place because in the eyes of important sections of the capitalist political and strategy-making establishment, the Bush policy is heading downhill. A narrow section of the U.S. capitalist class, like Bechtel, Halliburton and those with close ties to the Pentagon and the Bush administration, whose business is connected to oil or the occupation--are making money. But the capitalist class as a whole is unable to set up shop in Iraq. The Bush gang has also been incapable of setting up a stable government in Afghanistan. (1)
The political disaster for Bush in the Spanish elections, and the decision to pull Spain's troops out of Iraq, followed by those of the Dominican Republic and Honduras, has further isolated Washington. And the coup d'etat in Haiti, orchestrated and organized by the Bush administration, is turning into an occupation of unknown duration with the potential of arousing long-term resistance. The Haiti coup has already caused problems between the U.S. and the Caribbean countries. The Bush administration has also been unable to impose its "Free Trade Area of the Americas" plan on South America. It has stepped up intervention against the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela and against the FARC guerrilla movement in Colombia.
In pursuit of their ambitions the Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld grouping has proved to be a narrow grouping that lacks elementary foresight and strategic cunning. This separates them from their opponents within the "multilateralist" camp of imperialist strategists, like the Democrat John Kerry. So far the Bush policies have yielded neither great profits nor vast new regions of exploitation for the bosses. The bosses are happy about the big tax cuts. But all these foreign adventures have been politically and financially costly. Doubts have begun to set in.
CHANGES IN MASS CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE U.S.
These open debates within the ruling class has helped break a section of the population away from its original support for or apathy about the war that existed when ruling-class opinion was united behind the president. Most opinion is expressed in the terms used by the capitalist media. The Democratic candidate, John Kerry, instead of being clearly anti-war, has advocated sending more troops to Iraq and attempting to internationalize the war, bring in more of the [imperialist] allies from Europe, bring in the United Nations. There is now more media coverage of U.S. casualties, as illustrated by the intense debate over whether or not to publish pictures of coffins of U.S. troops returning from Iraq. Support for Bush's policies in Iraq dropped to only 44 percent in a CNN/Time magazine poll released April 9. Bush and Kerry are now very close in opinion polls regarding the election.
And now U.S. generals in Iraq are requesting additional troops. Only by arbitrarily extending the duty of reservists, who are often men and women with families, stable jobs, has the Pentagon found these troops. This forced duty is extremely unpopular among the troops themselves and their families. It is a de-facto conscription. There is talk of reinstating the draft. Should this occur, it will immediately force millions of young people into political life. The U.S. economy has continued to stagnate, with few jobs created. Manufacturing jobs continue to disappear. The capitalists are taking advantage of the global economy to minimize their labor costs, not only in manufacturing, but also in skilled computer jobs, financial services, anything that can be handled by telephone and cable over the Internet. The result is a downward pressure on wages inside the United States. Up to now these developments have provoked no widespread revolt in the working class, but a growing discontent develops as insecurity increases. There is also more suffering among unemployed people as the social programs cut under the last four administrations no longer can support them.
The largest strike in the past year was among supermarket (grocery chain) workers in California. It lasted five months. Many of the workers were immigrants, many of them women, which are the sectors of the working class that have shown the most militance in the last decade. The strike ended with concessions imposed on the workers. However, when a strike threatened in East Coast supermarkets, the company decided to make concessions rather than face a similar costly strike. The overall struggle of new immigrants in the work force is of tremendous importance. (2)
The AFL-CIO leadership has played a two-sided role in workers' struggles. In the fall of 2003, they helped organize a strong demonstration in defense of the rights of immigrant workers. But they are also putting far more financial resources into the effort to elect Kerry president over Bush than they did to help the strike on the West Coast. In addition, they are helping U.S. imperialism use pro-imperialist unions in Venezuela against the Hugo Chavez government.
There have also been important mobilizations in defense of bourgeois democratic rights. On April 25, around one million people, mainly women demonstrated in Washington defending the right to choose abortion. There has also been a growing struggle over the past few months by the lesbian/gay/bi/trans community to win the right to marry.
THE U.S. ELECTIONS
Through the winter and early spring, within the progressive movement in the U.S., there has been a development of what one can call an "Anybody but Bush" tendency. Its argument is more or less that Bush's gang are warmongers, utter reactionaries at home, repressive, anti-woman and racist, which is a correct assessment, and that "no matter how bad the Democratic candidate may be we have to work for them, give money to them and support them against Bush."
In our view to accept this strategy would tie the anti-war and progressive movement to a pro-war policy. Kerry wants to internationalize the occupation by including the European allies and has called for sending in more U.S. troops; he also supported the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Rantisi.
The Kerry forces are promising to bolster the fortunes of the ruling class by combining brutal military force with more tact and diplomacy. They want to reverse the isolation of Washington. They want to crush the resistance in Iraq, put out the fires of Palestinian resistance, subdue Haiti with more finesse, and so on. And they want to find ways of shoring up U.S. capitalism at home. The weaknesses of Bush should be a signal to the movement not to run to the Democrats but to intensify the struggle against the system of imperialist expansion and capitalist exploitation. (3)
NEXT STEPS FOR THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
U.S. imperialism took a high-stakes gamble with its almost unilateral invasion of Iraq. The resources of the region are vital to its plans for world domination. On the other hand, to be driven out of Iraq would be a significant setback and would encourage others to confront Washington rather than submit. Under these conditions, the movement has to prepare for an intensification of the occupation of Iraq rather than a U.S. withdrawal.
Much of Workers World's anti-war work takes place in the International Action Center, which is in turn part of the ANSWER Coalition, which also represents other progressive forces. ANSWER developed its reputation of political boldness confronting ruling-class policies starting with its immediate response to Bush's war plans following September 11, 2001. It has built the anti-war movement since that day during a period when there was no significant ruling-class grouping in the U.S. that opposed the war drive.
For the latest worldwide demonstration, on March 20, ANSWER worked hard to maintain unity of action with the other coalition, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), but also fought to include a demand to end the occupation of Palestine. In the end it succeeded. The U.S. demonstrations turned out substantially larger than the organizers had expected, with 100,000 in New York, 50,000 in San Francisco, 20,000 in Los Angeles and some other large and many smaller demonstrations in 60 U.S. cities. This action again showed the advantage of coordinating worldwide actions, making use of the Social Forums and the Internet.
In emergency response to the new threat of massive U.S. military action against the Iraqi resistance, ANSWER has called a demonstration for June 5 in Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles. This will give the first measure in the potential for mass mobilization in the United States following the April uprising in Iraq.
The main demand on June 5 "Bring the Troops Home Now - All foreign troops OUT of Iraq." ANSWER will also demand, "End the Colonial Occupation of Palestine - Support the Right of Return; U.S. out of Haiti, Korea, Afghanistan, Philippines, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela; Money for Jobs, Education, Housing & Healthcare - Not for War; Defend Civil Liberties & Civil Rights."
Working within the United States, it is necessary to take a position and if possible to take action on all those issues. For example, our comrades helped initiate the first delegation to visit President Jean- Bertrand Aristide when he was being held incommunicado in the Central African Republic and to break the wall of silence around him, exposing the U.S. role in kidnapping this democratically elected leader of Haiti. ANSWER then helped organize a meeting of 2,000 people, at least half Haitian immigrants, in Brooklyn, N.Y. (4) There are now thousands of U.S., French and Canadian troops occupying Haiti, and the U.S. presence there adds to the threats against Venezuela and Cuba. (5)
ANSWER will also participate in the World Tribunal on Iraq. It will organize a hearing on August 26, on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York City, inviting tribunals from around the world to send reporters to the hearing.
It will also be important for the movement to pay close attention to political changes among the members of the U.S. armed forces. The troops are in a contradictory position in Iraq. They are ordered to act as war criminals, firing on ambulances, sniping at civilians, and they do this. Yet most are also young members of the working class, and many are from oppressed nationalities. It is important for us to see them in all their contradictions, to understand that they can change from being war criminals to being war resisters. A lot depends on how rapidly, broadly and militantly the civilian anti-war movement grows and if it takes clear class positions that appeal to the working-class troops.
In an area of the world so vital to imperialist interests, symbolic protest alone, even with large numbers, can't be expected to drive the imperialists out. We will have to find ways to prosecute the class struggle at home. Only in this way will we be able to play a material role in ending the occupation and stopping the global U.S. imperialist war.
April 26, 2004
See the following articles for a development of these points on www.workers.org.
1. The trap of a false debate,
By Fred Goldstein http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/bushiraq0401.php
2. East Coast grocery workers' victory
By Sharon Black http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/ufcw0422.php
3. The fallacy of the 'anybody but Bush' movement
By Fred Goldstein http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/war0325.php
4. 2,000 rally in Brooklyn to denounce U.S. coup in Haiti
By Monica Moorehead http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/haitimtg0422.php
5. Imperialist coup becomes an occupation
By G. Dunkel http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/haiti0325.php