Vol. 71/No. 35      September 24, 2007

While repeating justifications for “long-term efforts” in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus told Congress this week that as many as 5,000 troops might be drawn down by December. He cited “devastating consequences” if U.S. troops were to withdraw “prematurely.”

But the consequences of immediate withdrawal would only be a problem for the U.S. rulers and their imperialist allies. Washington’s “global war on terror” has already wrought devastation on working people in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, and beyond.

There are currently 168,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and about 25,000 in Afghanistan. They are there for one reason only: to protect the interests of the capitalist class in the United States. Faced with sharpening competition from rival imperialist powers, the U.S. rulers need to expand their markets abroad and step up attacks at home on the wages, job conditions, and social gains of the working class. The combination of wars abroad and assaults at home is a decades-long perspective that the ruling class and both its major parties share.

Not a single voice in Congress calls for getting the troops out now. While taking partisan potshots at the Bush administration and its shortcomings in Iraq, the Democrats agree with the goals of the war, and readily fund it. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi calls for a “responsible” deployment of U.S. forces, “leaving enough troops there to fight the terrorists and to protect our embassy.” Prominent Democrats such as Senator Hillary Clinton have proposed sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the “war on terror” continues to expand. U.S. troops are currently operating in Africa, Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Washington is planning to build a base on the Iraq border just four miles from Iran. The U.S. rulers want to return to the days when the government in Tehran could be counted on to help further their political and economic goals in the region. They hope that a stable client regime in Iraq will advance this aim.

Working people need to demand immediate, unconditional withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as everywhere else they are stationed—in the Balkans, Darfur, Korea, Colombia, Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay, and beyond. “Phased withdrawal” schemes or meaningless “timetables” only embolden the U.S. rulers to drive ahead in their military assaults around the world.

Not one penny, not one person for Washington’s wars!
 
 
Related articles:
General: U.S. troops in Iraq for ‘long-term effort’
UK to raise troop levels in Afghanistan  
 
 
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