- No to the US/British occupation. Troops out of Iraq.
- The Iraqi people must decide their own future.
LAST WEEK, hospitals in Baghdad were swamped by casualties. At the Al Yarmouk hospital they were arriving at a rate of 100 an hour. Yet, even before the terrible death and destruction has ended in Iraq, the capitalist vultures are circling ready to make a ‘killing’ from what is left of the carnage.
The true face of the US empire, which Tony Blair so slavishly follows, is now clear for all to see. The world’s only superpower has used its overwhelming military force to defeat the Iraqi regime. Now the Iraqi people, thousands of whom have been slaughtered and injured by US/British bombs and bullets are meant to welcome them as their ‘liberators’.
It’s not liberation that the Iraqi people face but occupation by a US military dictatorship whose aim is to turn the country into a virtual US colony, safe for imperialism. The multinational oil companies are poised to make super profits as the Iraqi oil is privatised. It’s they who this brutal war has been waged for, not ordinary Iraqis whose blood has been spilled for oil.
Paul Wolfowitz, deputy US defence secretary, says that Iraq will be under US military control for at least six months, most probably much longer. As Secretary of State Colin Powell put it, having waged the war the US expects to have “significant dominant control” over how it unfolds in the future.
The war in Iraq has been just one episode in US imperialism’s project to assert its dominance across the globe. But their power has not gone completely unchallenged. Millions have risen up to protest around the world. In particular, a new generation of young people have been awakened to political struggle in the US, Britain and elsewhere.
They have seen the brutal reality of this capitalist profit system which is the root cause of conflict and war. Many are becoming active in the struggle for system change.
If you want to see a world free from war and terror, join them and the Socialist Party in the struggle for socialism internationally.
- Money for public services not for war.
- Bring the oil companies under democratic public ownership and control.
- For new mass parties to represent the real interests of working-class people.
- For a socialist world free from war and terror.
National anti-war demo
Saturday 12 April
Assemble 12 noon at either York Road, SE1 (nearest station Waterloo) or Victoria Street, SW1 (nearest station Victoria). March to Hyde Park.
Called by Stop the War Coalition + CND. www.stopwar.org.uk
