The Socialist 2 November 2001

Stop The War

Organise Now To Stop The War

Glasgow medical secretaries: Victory Over Low Pay

A Disastrous War and a Dubious Peace

The Deadly Legacy Of Imperialism

Socialist Alliance Future At Stake

ISR Rally: Fighting For A Socialist Future

Why The IRA Decomissioned

Previous issues, etc

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Organise Now To Stop The War

SOME POLITICIANS and military leaders now think that Bush and Blair's war against Afghanistan could last for years. Already in the first three weeks of US imperialism's bombing 1,000 Afghan civilians have been killed according to Taliban claims.

Tens of thousands more are trying to escape to their country's borders. 100,000 Afghan children could die this winter if food doesn't reach them and US bombs make it almost impossible to get food through.

This is a brutal war. Last weekend George Galloway MP summed up the situation by saying that the phrase "Socialism or barbarism" had never been more appropriate.

George, who intends to force a procedural vote in the House of Commons this week against the Blair government's participation in the war, was speaking at a rally of young people, trade unionists and socialists at the Socialist Party's Socialism 2001 education event.

"People ask what's the alternative to war?", he continued. "I say the answer cannot be the world's richest powers bombing the world's poorest country!"

George denounced attempts to link terrorism to the Left. "Bin Laden and the Taliban have nothing to do with the Left. The US created the Taliban monster and now George Bush is reaping the whirlwind."

He castigated foreign secretary Jack Straw for lying about the accuracy of the bombing, graphically describing the terror in Kabul's residential areas as 1,000 lb. bombs ripped through mud brick and wooden huts killing and maiming whole families. "How dare Jack Straw say there's no 'moral equivalence' between the victims in the Twin Towers and Afghan civilians blown apart by bombs?"

The movement against this war is growing. So is the realisation that the grossly unequal world of capitalism creates wars and terrorism.

Even US Republican senator Chuck Hagel admits: "When people have no hope because they're living in poverty and hunger and pestilence, people like bin Laden will seize upon that lack of hope. Until we start to recognise that... we will never really get to the core of stopping terrorism."

Start organising now for the 18 November anti-war demonstration in London. But don't leave it there. Join our fight to free the planet from poverty, war and terror - that means creating a socialist world.