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Vol. 71/No. 26      July 2, 2007

 
Oppose U.S.-led ‘war on terror’!
(editorial)
 
With the blessing of the Democratic-majority Congress, the Bush administration has completed the troop increase in Iraq it announced in January—the biggest escalation of the imperialist war since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The military offensive U.S. forces and their allies launched in Baquba and other parts of Iraq this week is what the top U.S. general in Iraq, David Petraeus, had promised when the Senate unanimously confirmed him earlier this year.

The imperialist war in Iraq, however, is just one front in Washington’s multi-theater “war on terrorism” that the U.S. rulers have promised will last decades. Under this banner, U.S. forces are engaged in operations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and even Europe. The target: any government that does not bend to their dictates, and ultimately working people; the cannon fodder: workers and farmers of the world.

More than 2,400 civilians, militia members, and troops have died in Afghanistan so far this year, where NATO forces are currently involved in intensified fighting. Washington continues its campaign of pressures and threats against Iran. It is leading its imperialist allies in Asia to expand the theaters of “antiterrorism” there, including through greater collaboration with the Australian rulers in the Philippines. In Africa, U.S. Special Forces engineered the toppling of an Islamic government in Somalia, and Washington—with liberal forces leading the campaign—is pressing for greater imperialist intervention in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The “war on terrorism” extends from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia—such as Uzbekistan, where U.S. troops first established a base in 2001 in preparation for the Afghanistan war; to Eastern Europe, where Washington is placing components of its missile shield allegedly to stop missiles from Iran; to the Balkans, where the U.S. rulers are cynically manipulating the Albanian peoples’ just demands for self-determination in Kosova as part of the imperialist drive to reestablish capitalism in that part of the world.

Washington’s “war on terror” is about one thing and one thing only: the expansion of the profits of the tiny minority of capitalists and landlords that rule the United States and much of the world. Their imperialist wars abroad go hand in hand with their unrelenting offensive against the wages, safety, and living conditions of working people at home. Workers and farmers in the United States, and toilers around the world—the vast majority of humanity—have every interest in opposing the U.S.-led “war on terror” everywhere.

That’s why working people should demand unconditional withdrawal now of U.S. and allied troops, not only from Iraq, but from Afghanistan; the Balkans; Djibouti; Darfur; Eastern Europe; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; Korea; the Philippines; Somalia, and beyond! No to threats against Iran and north Korea; lift the sanctions! Not one penny or person for Washington’s wars!
 
 
Related articles:
U.S. troops in Iraq launch brutal assault
With blessing from U.S. Congress, Pentagon completes military escalation
Australian gov’t steps up intervention in Philippines  
 
 
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