The Socialist 9 November 2001

Paying The Price Of Bush And Blair's War

Capitalist Crisis Worsens: Fight The Bosses' Attacks

Desperate Measures Won't Stop Terrorism

World Economy: Deepest Downturn Since The 1930s?

Rebuilding Afghanistan? Lessons Of The Balkans Conflict

Protest in Brussels

Northern Ireland: An Agreement Based On Division

What Future For The Socialist Alliance?

Links With Labour Debated As Unison United Left Launched

Previous issues, etc

Print this issue




Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/229/9228

Google search the site	Printable version	email to friend

Home | The Socialist 9 November 2001 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate | Bookshop

Paying The Price Of Bush And Blair's War

NEW LABOUR'S Chancellor Gordon Brown said recently that: "We will pay the price that is necessary to win the war... The Treasury will make the resources available that are necessary to win this fight".

Kieran Roberts

However, it's not the politicians or the bosses who will pay the price of this war. As always in times of warfare, working-class people will foot the bill for the military action through tax rises and job losses.

Of course, the heaviest price will be paid by the Afghan working class and poor. Many hundreds, possibly thousands, have already died in the bombing raids while well over six million face hunger and starvation over the coming months.

Reports have already started coming in from the more remote villages of deaths from starvation.

Is this what the government want working-class people in Britain to pay for? The Observer reports a government adviser as saying that the "public must accept that they have to pay more if they really believe that problems around the world are to be solved".

However, Blair and Bush's war won't "solve" any of the problems that working-class people face anywhere in the world, including here in Britain.

The war certainly won't improve the situation of the 1.2 billion people who live on less than $1 a day around the world, or that of the millions who live without a supply of clean drinking water.

Any world order dominated by the likes of Bush and Blair will still be one of mass poverty and war. These capitalist politicians are more interested in defending the right of US and western powers to maintain their profits, power and prestige.