No To War

Stop Bush and Blair's military plans

Don't let workers pay the price

The 11th September 2001 ("9/11") terror attack

THE SHOCK of last week's attacks in New York, Washington and Pittsburgh has provoked mass anger and opposition against terrorism. But it has also brought apprehension among working people worldwide about what happens next.

Bush and Blair are banging the drums for immediate phase one action against the alleged perpetrators of last week's terror attack - a swift attack on their so-called bases. This is to be followed by phase two - a long drawn-out battle, possibly involving countries like Iraq as well as alleged terror groups.

But there is a wider anxiety about how the working class and oppressed globally will have to pay the price in lost lives, economic crises and upheaval for this new war against an indeterminate enemy.

The world's bosses have made it clear they don't intend to bear the cost of protecting their capitalist system. They immediately rushed in to use the developing crisis to sack thousands of workers.

Richard Branson's Virgin Airways announced 1,200 redundancies - many of whom daily face risk in their working lives. Now they are to be sacrificed - not to a terrorist attack but to the terror of upholding big businesses' profits. Continental, United and American Airlines are carrying out similar retrenchments in the USA.

Likewise, the insurance companies are threatening huge increases in premiums; pensions and other financial investments are likely to plummet as share values continue to slide.

The bosses will try and blame these cuts on the 'terror' recession - just like the capitalists tried to blame the 1974-75 recession on the Arab-Israeli war. But this recession was being prepared by the bosses' system long before last week's attacks.

Now they will extol workers to sacrifice everything possible - all to uphold their profit system.

Whilst many workers are horrified at last week's events and have no sympathy for those who carried out the attacks, they will also be opposed to paying the price of the bosses' crisis. The war that Bush and Blair are planning will not protect or advance the interests of workers in America, Britain or anywhere in the world.

This new war is unlikely to succeed in bringing those who carried out last week's attacks to justice. It is being prepared to uphold the interest of US imperialism specifically and the Western imperialist powers generally.

Workers in the advanced capitalist countries must oppose the war and fight for a socialist alternative to end the capitalist system which is bringing increased instability to all the oppressed worldwide.

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In The Socialist 21 September 2001:

No To War