The major capitalist powers, with Washington at the helm, are now leading a drive toward a bloody war in Yugoslavia. They are pouring tens of thousands of troops and heavy weaponry into Bosnia and other Yugoslav republics. Their underlying goal is to overthrow the workers state there and reestablish capitalism.
For the past four years the imperialist powers had relied on the warring factions of would-be capitalists - fragments of the previous Stalinist bureaucracy - to try to crush the Yugoslav workers and farmers. But these indirect means failed, resulting only in more chaos and instability in Europe. Now, the capitalist rulers, from Washington to Bonn, are resorting to direct and naked military intervention.
Democratic and Republican politicians and the big- business media are beating the war drums to justify their use of brute military force - all in the name of peace.
What is needed now is a campaign by working people to oppose and tell the truth about the imperialist war drive against Yugoslavia. All those resisting the assaults by the bosses and their governments have a vital stake in joining this effort. This includes unionists who have been fighting Caterpillar and Boeing and those on strike against the Detroit news bosses, youth demanding freedom for Mumia Abu- Jamal, fighters against police brutality, defenders of abortion rights, and family farmers defending their right to a livelihood. It includes GIs and reservists - the workers, farmers, and other youth who will be cannon fodder for big business.
For the first time since the Korean War, the imperialist powers are intervening with a massive force inside a workers state - a country where workers and farmers overthrew and expropriated the ruling landlords and capitalists in the 1940s. Washington, Paris, and London have already divided Bosnia into three sectors to be controlled by their respective armies. Some 30 governments will have troops involved in the occupation force.
In what may have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago, imperialism is marching down the road toward a major ground war being fought in Europe with troops from the United States, France, Britain, Germany, and other powers - capitalist governments with antagonistic and competing interests.
The war in Yugoslavia has been prodded along from the beginning by various imperialist regimes, as when Bonn welcomed the declarations of independence by the regimes in Croatia and Slovenia in 1991 and eagerly granted recognition and support. Washington, London, and Paris alike have sought to promote their competing interests through their relations with one or another gang of thugs.
But things have not gone smoothly for wannabe exploiters like those represented by Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade or Franjo Tudjman in Zagreb. Their bloody wars for territory and resources have met with stubborn resistance, such as the defense of Sarajevo by workers and youth of diverse nationalities.
While unleashing a slaughter against working people, killing thousands and displacing 2 million, the gangsters ruling different regions of Yugoslavia haven't succeeded in making it stable and safe for capitalism again.
So the imperialists are now moving decisively to take direct control in order to overthrow the workers state and to wrest the biggest possible portion of Yugoslavia for themselves. As they do so there is a contest for which imperialist power will occupy the top rung on the ladder and get the greatest booty, and where others on the imperialist feeding chain will end up.
Washington is coming out on top of the heap. Since the end of World War II it has been the major power in Europe - economically and militarily - and the Clinton administration intends to keep it that way. Washington has used its military might, as with the recent U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign, to push Bonn more to the sidelines in Croatia and assert its control of the region. This is a fact France's rulers were forced to recognize when they recently decided to rejoin the NATO military alliance.
The employers, their governments, and their media are resorting to a multifront campaign of lies to justify the war drive in Bosnia. On one hand they hypocritically claim it's a humanitarian mission for peace. On the other, they are trying to whip up pro-war chauvinism by portraying "Islamic fanatics" or Serb and Croatian "looters and rapists" as the enemy.
Now, Democratic and Republican politicians are rallying behind the battle cry of "Support our troops" to convince working people to accept becoming cannon fodder for this war against our fellow workers and farmers in the Balkans.
As they have repeatedly done to win public support for their war aims - from Pearl Harbor during World War II to the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin attack in Vietnam - the imperialist rulers will cold-bloodedly look for any opportunity to provoke an incident in order to unleash a patriotic war orgy. In his December 2 speech to U.S. troops in Germany, Clinton conjured this exact scenario. "If you are threatened with attack, you may respond immediately and with decisive force," he proclaimed.
As columnist William Safire put it, "If any side hits our peace-enforcers we will not cut and run, as in Lebanon and Somalia. The full division of Americans based in Tuzla will respond with ferocity, even as our allies plead with us to be `proportionate.' "
With these words, Clinton - one of the most warmongering U.S. presidents - and his cohorts clearly explain how they will make their case for war. They will do so once the first U.S. GIs fall in combat, sweeping away the denial and even outright opposition to a U.S.-led war in Bosnia that exists at the moment among millions of working people.
This war drive is bipartisan, as were the U.S. assaults on Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti. Today, the representatives of the rich in Congress aren't confident the war in Yugoslavia will be easy, smooth, or that they can prevent it from becoming a quagmire and provoking organized opposition. But, as always, the capitalist handwringers are falling in line behind Commander-in-Chief Clinton as the troops pour in. The voice of working people is not represented in Congress, and we will have no vote on war.
While crying crocodile tears for the people of Bosnia the U.S. rulers and their politicians are also forging ahead with their deepening assault on our unions, on democratic rights, with attempts to gut Social Security, cut back on medical care, and attack the gains of Blacks and women. The war drive in Yugoslavia and the bosses' assault on our democratic rights and living standards at home go hand in hand.
That's why opponents of imperialism and the march toward war will find the space to openly debate and discuss the rulers assaults in the working class. Now is the time to orient even deeper to workers and youth. Now is the time to go to the plant gates and picket lines at mines, mills, and factories. Now is the time to seek out citizen-soldiers on U.S. bases, working farmers in the countryside, students demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, activists mobilizing to defend abortion rights. Now is the time to ask anyone resisting attacks by the bosses and their governments to oppose NATO's war drive as well.
Resistance to the plans of the rulers takes on double importance now - from strikes to fights against police brutality, the death penalty, for Black rights, in defense of immigrant workers, for affirmative action, and for women's rights. These struggles, and the people who go through them, will intertwine with building opposition to the war drive.
Every opportunity should be taken to have meetings, discussions, debates, and get out literature that explains the truth about what Washington is preparing. Some of the best tools available are the book The Truth About Yugoslavia - Why Working People Should Oppose Intervention and New International no. 7 with the article "Opening Guns of World War III." Selling the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and the New International at plant gates, in the community, on campuses, and at political events is one of the most important activities there is to get into the discussion with a range of working people.
We also urge all our readers to participate and help build the socialist educational conferences advertised on the front page. These events will help arm politically all those who want to fight imperialist tyranny, fascism, and war.
This range of activities is the only way to effectively carry out the broadest possible campaign against the war moves - a working-class campaign against the imperialist war drive in Yugoslavia.
Let's urge all working people and youth to join in demanding:
All NATO troops out of Yugoslavia now!