Vol. 73/No. 14      April 13, 2009

We join with Socialist Workers candidates in local campaigns in other cities and states in saying not one penny, not one soldier for Washington’s wars in Afghanistan or Iraq; stop the missile attacks on Pakistan now!

On March 27 President Barack Obama announced a further escalation of the war in Afghanistan. In addition to the 17,000 troops he has already ordered to Afghanistan, he is sending 4,000 more troops to train Afghan soldiers. This brings the U.S. forces in that country to 68,000, in addition to 35,000 other NATO troops. U.S. military aid to Afghanistan is jumping by 60 percent.

Meanwhile, there is no let-up in Washington’s missile attacks by pilotless drones in Pakistan, the latest of which, on March 25, killed seven people. The toll in these assaults since Obama took office rank among the highest since Washington launched its war in the region in the beginning of this decade. Washington plans to triple aid to the Pakistani government to step up the war further.

In Iraq, the announced “withdrawal” of U.S. forces over 16 months does not include tens of thousands of troops the White House says are needed to train Iraqi soldiers, provide “security,” and fight “terrorists.”

We urge supporters of the socialist campaign to join every action protesting these wars and to demand immediate, unconditional withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

These wars are an extension of the domestic policy pursued by both Democrats and Republicans. The U.S. employers face sharpening competition from their capitalist rivals. To increase their profit rates bosses are cutting our wages, increasing speedup, making us perform unsafe work, and laying us off by the hundreds of thousands each month. Here in New York, government officials are planning to cut 9,000 state jobs and raise the New York City subway fare from $2.00 to $2.50, lay off many transit workers, and sharply curtail service.

The employers are increasing protectionist measures with their “Buy American” provisions in government “stimulus” plans and tariffs on goods from other countries. These moves are not only to increase their share of the market. The capitalists are trying to get us to see foreign workers as the enemy, not the boss here at home. They want us to fight for “American jobs” for “American workers” not jobs for all workers around the world.

The socialist campaign opposes all U.S. tariffs and protectionist measures. We say cancel the debt of the semicolonial countries.

The rulers seek to present the unfolding economic catastrophe as caused by “greedy” bankers and investors on Wall Street. They want to channel our anger into protesting these individuals and take our eyes off the capitalist system itself, whose workings brought about the financial collapse and economic contraction that is wreaking havoc on the lives of workers around the world. This is the politics of resentment, dangerous demagogy aimed at destroying working-class solidarity.

The course we must fight for is one of recognizing that our interests as a class are incompatible with those of the boss. To defend our interests, workers need to make a revolution that takes political power out of the capitalists’ hands.

Until we do so, working people the world over will face more wars, unemployment, ruinous bursts of inflation, trade wars, attacks on unions, and efforts to divide us through scapegoating of immigrants, Jews, and other targets designed to take our eyes off the real source of the problem: the profit system.

By overthrowing the wages system and taking political power into our own hands we can take immediate steps to provide relief for the working class, such as extending unemployment benefits for as long as workers are out of a job and legalizing all undocumented workers without conditions. Fighting on a course that put workers’ interests first, we can enact legislation for a massive public works program to put millions to work at union-scale wages, building schools, hospitals, affordable housing, roads, and transportation; shorten the workweek with no cut in pay to spread the available work to all; provide cost-of-living increases in all wages and benefits; and bring home all the U.S. troops stationed everywhere in the world.
 
 
Related articles:
4,000 more troops for Afghan war
Washington and Tokyo, threaten North Korea
France rejoins NATO military command  
 
 
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