As part of the war drive it has unleashed since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S. government already has 115 immigrants in preventive detention. Under new regulations enacted by the Justice Department, immigrants can be held indefinitely without charges if U.S. officials declare a "national emergency."
With bipartisan support, Congress is authorizing extended government powers to wiretap phone and computer communications and other attacks on constitutionally guaranteed rights. The U.S. government's chauvinist warmongering abroad and harassment of immigrants at home has given a green light for the recent wave of violent attacks on individuals from the Mideast and South Asia. This includes the killing of an Indian man in Mesa, Arizona; a Pakistani immigrant in Dallas, Texas; and an Egyptian man in San Gabriel, California (see articles on pp.10-11).
John Goheen, a spokesman for the National Guard Association, told the New York Times that the government response to the September 11 attacks "is a new kind of homeland defense."
The Clinton administration established for the first time a North American command for the Pentagon, authorizing all branches of the military to prepare for domestic deployment of troops, aircraft, warships, and secret police of the U.S. armed forces. The current moves by the Bush administration are the first massive use of that command.
The Pentagon has begun activating tens of thousands of reservists and National Guard troops to fly air patrols between Washington and New York, serve as police at military bases and airfields, and supplement regular forces in intelligence gathering, engineering, computers, and foreign languages. U.S. president George Bush gave the Defense Department authority to call up some 35,000 reservists for deployment at home and abroad.
Gun-toting Guardsmen, along with state troopers and other cops, have been conducting widespread identification checks on New York streets. In the city's harbors the Coast Guard has deployed ships mounted with heavy-caliber machine guns. Troops are boarding commercial vehicles and blocking access to recreational boats.
Coast Guard personnel have boarded and searched more than 300 vessels this past week in San Diego Harbor, and shut down the Boston harbor on September 16. "We have never done these kinds of security measures, to this extent, any time in our history," said a Coast Guard spokesperson this week in New York.
All nuclear power plants and most hydroelectric dams have been put under military guard. National Guard troops were deployed to Hoover Dam, replacing Interior Department guards. Nine germ warfare Guard units, in their first deployment ever, have been sent to undisclosed locations.
Washington is considering moves to militarize the airlines by federalizing security checks at airports and placing armed air marshals on all commercial flights.
"The bottom line," a Chicago cop told reporters, "is people need to understand you can no longer come and go as you please."
Disabusing any idea that the deployments are localize or temporary, U.S. senator Charles Hagel called the moves "exactly right," adding, "Not only do we have a short-term issue, but this is a long-term fight against organized terrorism worldwide."
Targeting Afghanistan
As dozens of heavy bombers and other U.S. warplanes were dispatched to bases near Afghanistan September 19, Washington sent a battlegroup led by the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt to bolster forces in the region. The United States Central Command, the military headquarters for U.S. imperialism from the Horn of Africa to Pakistan, has 20,000 troops, 175 warplanes, and 14 ships at its disposal already. The Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, which includes a Marine force of 2,100 equipped with helicopters, amphibious assault vehicles, and artillery, is due to leave Camp Lejeune in North Carolina September 20.
Washington is targeting Afghanistan, justifying its planned military assault in the name of pursuing Osama bin Laden, whom U.S. officials and the big-business media say is the "prime suspect" in the September 11 attacks. Democratic and Republican politicians and Pentagon officials are busy trying to gain broader support for the deployment of ground troops, beginning with special forces.
"The planning and the language used by administration officials," a New York Times article reported, "is preparing the way for a military force that could ultimately be used to occupy Kabul, the Afghan capital, and overthrow the ruling Taliban party."
Bolstering the case that combat troops will need to be used and preparing the U.S. population for casualties, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "Several countries have exhausted themselves pounding [Afghanistan]. There are not great things of value that are easy to deal with. And what we'll have to do is exactly what I said: use the full spectrum of our capabilities."
Referring to U.S. casualties, Bush said September 18, "There will be costs" to the war, but the military is "ready to defend freedom at any cost."
Many commentators have noted that an invasion of mountainous Afghanistan will not be a cakewalk for Washington, which has no bases in neighboring countries. "The U.S. armed forces do not have a single soldier or officer who speaks Pushtu," the principal language in Afghanistan, a senior military official told the British daily Telegraph. The paper noted that "according to authoritative reports, before the current crisis the CIA had no agents on the ground inside Afghanistan and the State Department has no high-level contacts with the anti-Taliban forces in northern Afghanistan."
To compensate, U.S. officials met with senior Pakistani officials and "demanded that Pakistan agree if necessary to allow American ground troops and special forces units to operate from this country," according to press reports. In face of this U.S. pressure, Maj. Gen. Faiz Gilani, a top officer in the Pakistani military's secret police, was dispatched to Kabul to tell Taliban officials to turn over Bin Laden or face a U.S. invasion.
Due to deep opposition to this collaboration with Washington among the Pakistani people, Washington is closely watching the developments in the country. Referring to the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in a military coup, one top U.S. official said, "A lot of us are worried that he may not survive politically."
The government of the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan, told Washington it "was ready to discuss any form of cooperation in the struggle against international terrorism in or region, including the deployment of U.S. forces." Uzbekistan was a corridor for troops and supplies from the Soviet Union in Moscow's ill-fated occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Washington has already imposed a de facto embargo on Afghanistan, a nation oppressed and exploited by imperialism. The governments of Pakistan and Iran have sealed their borders with Afghanistan to try to stop an already massive flow of people seeking to get out of the country prior to the U.S. assault.
Some in the Bush administration are also pushing for Washington to openly declare Iraq a target of the current war drive. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney, are both pressing for U.S. military attacks on Iraq--with the aim of overthrowing the government of Saddam Hussein--and on Lebanon's Bekaa region. Wolfowitz has been more "concerned about bombing Iraq than bombing Afghanistan," one senior administration official told the press.
A number of capitalist politicians delivered a letter to Bush September 19 urging him to "make a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power," even if there is no link established between Iraq and the attacks in Washington and New York.
Congress passed a resolution September 14 granting the president sweeping powers to "use all necessary and appropriate force" against targets abroad, and appropriated an initial $40 billion to the domestic militarization drive and war effort abroad.
There is now overwhelming bipartisan agreement to end any pretense of a "lock-box" of Social Security funds. Bush had previously said the "Social Security surplus" would only be used in time of recession, war, or other emergencies. "We've had all three, it seems to me," he told reporters September 19.
British support, caution elsewhere
Washington's war drive is winning military backing for its war drive from imperialist governments in English-speaking countries including Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
British prime minister Anthony Blair strongly backed Bush, declaring, "Whatever the technical or legal issues about a declaration of war, the fact is that we are at war with terrorism." (Also see articles on pp. 8 and 16.)
But the war moves are drawing more caution for other imperialist rivals of the U.S. rulers such as Paris and Berlin, who fear Washington will use the military assault to strengthen its position in the world to their detriment. According to the Financial Times of London, French government officials "urged President George W. Bush not to make the world yet more dangerous with ill-planned retaliation."
Many governments in the Mideast, aside from the Israeli regime, are urging Washington not to pursue a unilateral course to war, as are Moscow and Beijing. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak urged Washington to carry out its response under the formal auspices of the United Nations and called for an "international conference on terrorism." An official of the Gulf Cooperation Council told the London-based Al Hayat that the "Americans are intent on a military operation and we can only hope that this will not have repercussions on the region."
In Japan, lawmakers began to debate new legislation that would allow logistical support for any U.S. military action. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has been pressing for a revision to the country's constitution to allow deployment of the military for "self-defense" of an ally, said the government "should consider what Japan can do and what Japan should do."
Washington has put Tel Aviv under heavy manners, scotching hopes of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to use the crisis to accelerate its own war drive against the Palestinian people. The Financial Times reported September 19 that "Israel responded to intense U.S. and European pressure yesterday by agreeing to stop offensive military actions against the Palestinians, removing a potential obstacle to the creation of a U.S.-led international coalition against terrorism."
Koppel noted that the U.S. government now has arrested at least 115 immigrants around the country who, under new rules announced by the Bush administration, can be detained indefinitely without charges if the U.S. authorities declare a "national emergency."
The Socialist Workers candidate pointed to a statement he had issued September 11 that called on working people "to speak out against the U.S. rulers' demagogic efforts, in the name of preempting 'terrorism,' to rationalize restrictions on political rights" and to oppose "the campaign by the U.S. government--Democrats and Republicans alike--to curb the constitutionally guaranteed space for political organization and activity and to legitimize the use of the U.S. armed forces at home and abroad."
Koppel referred to the mobilization of tens of thousands of troops from the National Guard and reserves for "homeland defense" on U.S. territory, the deployment of armed sky marshals on passenger planes, and moves to widen spying and wiretaps by the FBI and other political police agencies. "It's working people who are the target of these reactionary moves," he explained.
Koppel condemned the wave of violent attacks on immigrants from the Mideast and Asia, including the killing of an Indian man in Arizona, a Pakistani immigrant in Texas, and an Egyptian-born man in California. "The U.S. government's warmongering abroad and harassment of immigrants at home is responsible for these criminal attacks," he said.
After the filmed interview, the television reporter commented how Washington had invaded Panama in 1989 under the pretext of "fighting drugs." Remarking that the U.S. assault had killed thousands of Panamanians in working-class neighborhoods, she was pleased to hear a voice of opposition to Washington's aggressive moves. She was disturbed by the American patriotic atmosphere she saw at a "memorial" set up at Union Square, which is covered with U.S. flags, candles, pacifist signs, "prayer stations," and banners.
Since the U.S. government launched a war drive following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Socialist Workers candidates around the country and their supporters have been campaigning to explain the nature of this stepped-up war on working people at home and abroad by getting out on street tables in working-class districts, speaking out at forums and public protests against Washington's actions, and joining in the resistance by unionists and other working people to the employers' assault on wages, working conditions, and rights.
In Pittsburgh, Kathleen Fitzgerald, a garment worker, said that socialist workers and Young Socialists joined a rally at Carnegie Mellon University to protest the U.S. war drive. They met students repelled by the brutality and patriotic chauvinist campaign unleashed by the U.S. rulers. These same students were interested in a working-class explanation of the world and the prospects for building a revolutionary movement of working people in this country that can take power out of the hands of the capitalist warmakers. One student they met at the rally renewed his subscription to the Militant, the Socialist Workers campaign newspaper.
Frank Forrestal, a union coal miner and Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of Pittsburgh, said he and two other socialists who work at the same mine took advantage of a day off to go to Pennsylvania State University, where Black students organized a protest against racist attacks. "They had been pressured to call it off in the wake of the September 11 events but held it anyway," said Forrestal.
In New York, Koppel and other Socialist Workers campaigners set up street tables in the city's Garment District. "By being there with the campaign statement and the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books that explain the roots of the war drive and how to oppose it, we became a pole of attraction for a stream of people who came over to our tables to talk and purchase literature," said campaigner Dan Fein. "Some people had sharp disagreements with us, but they were civil discussions." A math teacher bought the Militant and invited Koppel to address his class.
In Brooklyn, Manhattan's Garment District, and Upper Manhattan, Militant Labor Forums were held on Sunday, September 16, titled "Oppose U.S. military assaults and curbs on democratic rights." Publicized on two days' notice, the meetings drew about 90 people, including a number who had just met the socialist campaigners on the street and came to join in a discussion. This included a group of students from New York University, young Palestinian activists, a hospital worker, and young people who had taken part in a recent fact-finding trip to Cuba. A Mexican-born furniture worker in Brooklyn decided to join the Young Socialists.
In Houston, supporters of the socialist candidate for mayor, Anthony Dutrow, have been organizing a final push to collect enough signatures to place his name on the ballot. They joined with 60 others at a demonstration in front of the federal building in Houston to condemn Wash-ington's war moves.
'Imperialism is a death trap for workers in U.S.'
A young Dominican-born worker told Koppel, "I think the reason they are going to war is oil in the Mideast and other investments. Are they going to send thousands of young people to Afghanistan to die for that?" Another worker who joined the discussion commented, "The U.S. is violent all over the world. As long as there is injustice there is going to be war and violence," he said, pointing to the 1965 U.S. invasion of his country, the Dominican Republic. "Look at the Palestinians--they're fighting for their land."
Both workers were interested in the response by Koppel, who pointed to the socialist campaign statement, which explained that "by its systematic superexploitation of the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America; by its never-ending insults to their national and cultural dignity; by its ceaseless murderous violence in countless forms--U.S. imperialism is turning North America into a death trap for working people and all who live here."
Socialist Workers campaigners in New York are organizing to regularize their weekly sales of the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books at plant gates in the Garment District and other meat-packing plants and clothing shops in the city, to get these publications into the hands of other workers who are discussing the events unfolding in the world today.
"Our campaign in New York--and Socialist Workers campaigns around the country--will be reproducing our September 11 statement and putting it in every copy of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial that we sell," Koppel said.
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Socialist workers candidates for mayor
Boston--Sarah Ullman, garment worker Cleveland-Eva Braiman, meat packer Detroit--Osborne Hart, meat packer and member of United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) Houston--Tony Dutrow, meat packer Miami--Mike Italie, garment worker New York--Martín Koppel, editor, the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial Pittsburgh--Frank Forrestal, coal miner and member of the United Mine Workers of America Seattle--Ernie Mailhot, meat packer and member UFCW St. Paul--Tom Fiske, meat packer |