AS BUSH MOVES TOWARD WAR:  MASS OPPOSITION AT HOME GROWS
By Fred Goldstein

Whatever Hans Blix and the weapons inspectors tell the United Nations
Security Council on Jan. 27,it is clear that the politics and diplomacy
of the Bush administration and of Britain's Tony Blair are strictly
calculated to bolster their military plans for an unprovoked war of
aggression against Iraq.

It is equally clear that the anti-war move ment must urgently broaden
and escalate its efforts to stop this catastrophic war drive. The
menacing buildup of U.S. and British forces in the Gulf area, in the
face of worldwide opposition, must be met with mass mobilization
everywhere.

Bush has brushed aside every positive assertion of the UN weapons
inspectors. He has dismissed the opposition of France and Germany--
imperialist allies of the U.S. who nevertheless fear the war and see no
gain in a campaign that will leave Wall Street and Washington in charge
in Iraq. He has dispatched officials to relentlessly promote the war in
an effort to overcome the growing anti-war sentiment in the U.S. and in
defiance of the opinion of the vast majority of humanity.

A NAKED QUEST FOR EMPIRE

The Bush administration is making it as clear as it possibly can to the
entire world that the White House and the Pentagon are on a course of
conquest. No amount of diplomacy, no international or constitutional
legality, nor any truth or facts will be allowed to stand in their way.
The drive to conquer Iraq--to seize its oil fields for the profits of
the giant monopolies and the military-industrial complex and to setup a
base in the Middle East--overrides all other considerations.

The Bush administration's plans forthe long-term military occupation of
Iraq are nothing more than undisguised, pre-World War II-style
colonialism. This is part of a naked quest for empire. The National
Security Strategy document issued last September makes clear the
intention of Washington to rule the world. It declares the right of
preemptive war. It warns that no power or combination of powers will be
allowed to challenge U.S. military supremacy.

In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and retreat ofthe world
national liberation struggles, Washington feels that its military might
makes it omnipotent.The militarists and the ruling class are drunk with
power and prone to adventure. They falsely assume that they can remain
supreme forever solong as they retain nuclear and conventional military
superiority over other nation states.

But the Achilles' heel of the Pentagon is the people of the world, who
will not submit to oppression passively. Wash ington has completely
discounted the mass resistance that its aggression is sure to provoke.

And above all, it has prematurely discounted the potential for
resistance right here in the U.S.

MASS OPPOSITION NOW INDISPUTABLE

The extraordinary outpouring of hundreds of thousands of people in Wash
ington, D.C., San Francisco and other cities across the U.S. on Jan. 18
was a huge setback to all the pundits,poll takers and propagandists who
have worked overtime to undermine and conceal the massive grassroots
opposition to a war on Iraq.

The demonstrations, organized by the International ANSWER coalition,
were twice the size of the coalition's large Oct. 26 protests. These
events have shown that no amountof concealment or minimizing by the big
business media can stop the development ofa deep and abiding grassroots
U.S. anti-war opposition.

The pro-war propaganda machine, including all the television networks,
news services and newspapers, widely reported the Jan. 18 events. They
fear losing all credibility with the people.Some want to force the Bush
administration and the rest of the ruling class to take account of the
potential anti-war rebellion brewing down below.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin
Powell were both questioned about the demonstrations on Sunday morning
talk shows by NBC's Tim Russert and CNN's Wolf Blitzer. They politely
ducked and said that the demonstrations were an exercise in democracy.
They then both went on to reassert the Bush administration's
determination to go to war.

Rice and Powell's glib responses aside, the Bush administration and the
Pentagon have until now been able to totally disregard theopposition in
the U.S. as a factor in the struggle. This is no longer the case. There
is a serious new front in the struggle, whether Bush knows it or not.

The New York Times,which has supported the war plans and regards itself
as an adviser to the capitalist government, flat-out stated as much in
its editorial of Jan. 20, entitled "A Stirring in the Nation."

"A largely missing ingredient in the nascent debate about invading Iraq
showed up on the streets of major cities over the weekend as crowds of
peaceable protesters marched in a demand to be heard. They represented
what appears to be a large segment of the American public that remains
unconvinced that the Iraqi threat warrants the use of military force at
this juncture," wrote the Times.

"Mr. Bush," continued the Times,"would be wise to see the demonstrators
as a clear sign that noticeable numbers of Americans no longer feel
obliged to salute the administration's plans because of the shock of
Sept.11 and thatmany harbor serious doubts about his march toward war."

The Times' tepid understatement about the demonstration tries to orient
the movement towards moderation and patriotism. But the fact is that
demonstrators on Jan. 18 were concerned about the horrendous effects of
U.S. aggression upon the Iraqi people.

MORE THAN AN ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

They were concerned with the genocidal sanctions; the imperial plans of
Wash ington; the racism of the economic draft; the sending of poor,
nationally oppressed and working class youth to kill and be killed to
expand the empire of the oil companies and the Pentagon.

They applauded calls for an end to U.S.-supported Israeli aggression
against the Palestinian people. They applauded denunciations of the
repression of the thousands of people from the Middle East and Asia
being swept up in dragnets bythe FBI and the INS. They cheered calls to
force the U.S. to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction. They were
outraged at the cost of the war being shifted onto the workers and the
poor.

In fact, the most important aspect of this new emerging anti-war
movement is that it is more than an anti-war movement. It is an
emerging, strongly progressive current in U.S. capitalist society that
has been galvanized by the threat of war. It burst through the surface
on Oct. 26 and again with more force on Jan. 18.

Its manifestation as a national movement is largely due to the
persistent and determined organizing of the ANSWER coalition and its
growing number of allies and friends in all corners of the progressive
and anti-imperialist movement.

It is important to note that this new movement, which has grown so
rapidly, has arisen in the face of a solid wall of reaction. The Sept.
11 disaster opened the door politically for the right-wing militarist
grouping in Washington to go on a worldwide offensive. They went full
force to implement their long-planned campaign of expansion.

They waged a criminal air war against Afghanistan; gave the green light
for a devastating attack by Ariel Sharon on the Palestinian national
movement; dispatched troops to the Philippines and North Africa; and
unleashed racist bigot John Ashcroft,the Justice Department and the INS
in a campaign of racist repression and intimidation, trampling over
democratic rights.

And they opened up their campaign to reconquer Iraq.

All of this war and intimidation has been supported, with a greater or
lesser degree of enthusiasm, by a monolithic propaganda machine and the
entire political establishment of both capitalist parties. There have
been no cracks in the class unity of the bosses and bankers and their
representatives.No dissident section of the imperialist bourgeoisie has
arisen so far to give the slightest encouragement or cover to opponents
of the war.

Thus this grassroots movement has grown up pushing back against the
entire weight of capitalist public opinion during a very reactionary
period. Spontaneous demonstrations have been organized in hundreds of
cities, towns and campuses,but the existence of a national movement has
been indispensably assisted by the initiatives of the ANSWER coalition.

MOVEMENT IS BROAD AND ANTI-IMPERIALIST

ANSWER's hallmark hasbeen to broaden and unite the movement by giving a
platform to every genuine anti-war voice, regardless of political
outlook. At the same time, however,it has guaranteed that the voices of
the Black, Latino, Asian and Native peoples, as well as people
struggling for their liberation against the U.S.government all over the
world, are heard loud and strong.

ANSWER has demonstrated in life that there is no contradiction between
giving voice to the struggle against imperialism and broadening the
movement.

In fact, for this movement to succeed it must ally itself with the
workers and the oppressed of the world, in order not to get derailed by
reactionary, pro-war chauvinism against any people targeted by
Washington. And it must ally itself with the workers and the oppressed
of this country,who are suffering under the growing capitalist economic
crisis that brings poverty, cutbacks, layoffs, deficits, racism and
repression.

The real Achilles' heel of Washington,despite all its military prowess,
is right here at home.Nothing can protect the Pentagon against a really
militant, mass anti-war movement that takes hold among the working
class.

A war of conquest intensifies all the reactionary aspects of capitalist
society. The ruling class tries to make the masses of people fight the
war, pay for the war and subordinate their demands for civil, social
and economic rights to the war effort.

This is laying the groundwork for a genuine mass resistance to the war
drive, from the community to the workplace to the campus. Anti-war
sentiment is spreading. Determined organization can convert passive
sentiment into effective opposition and militant,widespread resistance.

This is the only way to stop the war.


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