The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.59/No.33           September 11, 1995 
 
 
Halt U.S. Aggression Against Iraq  

"Hope springs eternal," goes one popular saying. Washington seems to have taken it to heart. Five years after dropping 88,000 tons of bombs on Iraq and slaughtering hundreds of thousands, including literally thousands buried alive, Washington still hopes it can remove Saddam Hussein and replace his regime with one more amenable to U.S. dictates.

That's why President Bill Clinton refuses to lift the embargo on Iraq, in spite of the immense suffering it causes for the Iraqi people.

The latest pretexts for stepping up the pressure were training exercises by the Iraqi army and the defection of two former high officials in Hussein's regime. Washington immediately rushed troops to Kuwait to send a message to Hussein and to see if it could encourage a palace revolt. The defections, if anything, underscored that Washington has no one it can count on to put in Hussein's place.

The U.S. rulers have another problem. They will never again be able to put together the coalition formed after Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. While Washington temporarily bolstered its edge against its competitors in Paris, Bonn, and Tokyo, imperialist rivalries since then have accelerated.

Now the French government, with the backing of Moscow, and apparently even some feelers from businessmen in London, is seeking to loosen the embargo against Iraq. Not because Paris has any sympathy for the workers and peasants in Iraq who face the brunt of the economic devastation caused by the blockade, but because they want to strengthen their position vis-a-vis Washington.

But the latest U.S. troop moves to the Middle East should not be taken lightly. While a shooting war seems to have been avoided this time, the U.S. government, regardless of who ends up in the White House after the 1996 elections, has not given up on its goals.

The Middle East, and the world, is less stable, not more stable, since the 1990-91 Gulf War. There will be more wars and more imperialist intervention, not less.

Washington still believes it is the world's cop. Working people in the United States are getting a sharper picture of what that means. In Philadelphia we have the gang in blue planting evidence and sending hundreds of innocent people to jail. In Los Angeles those who are supposedly there "to protect and to serve" once again have had their masks torn off with Officer Mark Furman's tapes, which show their standard operating procedure.

Around the world, working people need to oppose Washington's so-called police actions, whether in Iraq or the former Yugoslavia.

No blood for oil! U.S. out of the Middle East! Lift the embargo on Iraq!

 
 
 
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