A number of capitalist politicians, Democratic and Republican, have put forth their own “proposals” criticizing the White House plan. These include a nonbinding resolution introduced by senators Joseph Biden, Democrat from Delaware; Carl Levin, Democrat from Michigan; and Charles Hagel, Republican from Nebraska opposing the plan for additional troops.

Despite its anti-war facade, the proposed resolution plainly states that “the United States strategy in Iraq must not compromise the ability of the United States to address other vital national security priorities, in particular global terror networks … the nuclear program of Iran, the nuclear weapons of North Korea, and stability and security in Afghanistan.” This reflects the general sentiment in the bipartisan rhetoric against Bush’s proposal: how can Washington best fight the “war on terror” and succeed in safeguarding and advancing its imperialist interests abroad.

The People’s Weekly World, which reflects the views of the Communist Party USA, published a January 16 statement by the party’s peace and solidarity commission. It says that these debates are “the first of many congressional standoffs with the Bush administration. The fight to stop the escalation is the first step toward congressional action to bring the troops home.”

But any reliance on Congress, that is the Democratic Party or other capitalist politicians, to end the war in Iraq and “bring the troops home” is an illusion.

The war in Iraq is caused and perpetuated by the need of the U.S. capitalist rulers and their allies to compensate for declining profit rates by competing among themselves on how to divide the world’s markets and resources. The U.S. rulers, whose interests are represented and protected by both major capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans, seek to safeguard U.S. finance capital and one-up their imperialist rivals.

Imperialism is not a policy of a particular president or Congress, but represents general laws of capitalist development; it is the highest stage of capitalism. Today we are experiencing the repercussions of a crisis that has its roots in the end of the post-World War II capitalist expansion. The world situation is marked by the economic downturn of the early and mid-1970s, and the collapse of the Stalinist apparatuses in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. What we face today was not caused by 9/11, but is simply the acceleration of that earlier crisis. We live in an epoch of imperialist decay, where the ruling classes will resort to the most extreme forms of violence to compensate for their historically outmoded system at the expense of working people.

The Young Socialists demands the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and all other countries where they conduct brutal military assaults. We are for the unconditional defeat of U.S. imperialism throughout the world. We help build and participate in actions to advance such demands.

At the same time, we give no political support to reactionary native-bourgeois forces that front as a “popular resistance.” None of these forces—such as Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, or Sunni-led death squads in Iraq, or the Taliban in Afghanistan—have a class interest in uniting the workers and peasants to advance a fight for national sovereignty, end the U.S.-led occupation, and defend the interests of the toiling majority.

We in the Young Socialists, along with the Socialist Workers Party, seek to build a movement led by, and in the interests of, workers, farmers, and their allies. The Young Socialists is the only revolutionary communist youth organization that is committed to the working-class line of march toward state power and the inevitability of that struggle.

The only way to end imperialist war is to put an end to the system that perpetuates it, capitalism, and replace it with a society based on human solidarity, not the dog-eat-dog reality and morality of the profit system. That’s why we encourage all youth who are serious about ending the U.S. rulers’ wars to Join the Young Socialists!

For more information, contact the YS at 306 W. 37th St., 10th floor, New York, NY 10018; Tel: (212) 629-6649; e-mail: youngsocialists@mac.com .
 
 
Related articles:
Imperialist war in Iraq escalates
More U.S. troops sent to Baghdad
Bipartisan support for war strong
U.S. soldier fights court-martial for refusing to deploy to Iraq
Troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan now!  
 
 
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