March 17 2003, U.K.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nThe organised slaughter has begun. It is now clear that this was always \nthe intention of Bush, the nominal head of US capitalism, and his \nBritish\ncounterpart, Blair. They cynically allowed the diplomatic wrangling to \ngo on at the UN so as to buy them time to get their forces massing on \nthe borders of\nIraq up to full fighting strength. This done, diplomacy was discarded \nand the military given the go-ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This war is not being fought simply to overthrow a brutal dictator – \nthough this will surely happen – nor even to stop the spread of chemical\nand biological weapons – even though countries like the US and Britain \nare anxious\nto maintain their monopoly of such weapons. It is being fought over a \nkey energy source – oil, of which Iraq has the second biggest reserves \nafter Saudi\nArabia. The chief aim is to secure future supplies of such energy \nresources, essential to their political and economic demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, this war is no different from any of the wars that \nhave taken\nplace in modern times. It’s a business war. Capitalism is driven by the \ncompetitive struggle for profits between corporations and states. \nConflict,\neconomic, political and, as a last resort, military is built-in to \ncapitalism over sources of raw materials, investment outlets, markets, \ntrade routes, and\nstrategic points to control and protect these. When a state judges that \nits “vital interest” is threatened – e.g. needing to secure access to a \nkey raw\nmaterial, trade route or military outpost-it goes to war. Iraq did this \nwhen it invaded Kuwait in 1990 and America is doing this now in invading\n Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Capitalism breeds war, though most people would prefer to live in \npeace. Consequently massive propaganda exercises are employed by the \nstate to stoke\ntheir fears and anxieties that stem from the material poverty and \ninsecurity. Invariably they also endeavour to present it as being in \nsome way humanitarian.This is because people have a healthy horror of \nwar. They know war means death\nand destruction. Death not only of the soldiers on both sides, but also \nof women, children and old people as “collateral damage” – who make up \nfour-fifths\nof casualties of modern war – and destruction not only of military \ninstallations and hardware, but also of bridges, roads, power stations, \nports,\nhospitals and other socially-useful constructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This particular war may be over quickly. The Iraqi armed forces are \nno match for the US army and its awesome weapons of mass destruction. It\n is, however,\ngoing to be followed by chaos and massacre throughout the region, as \nBush and Blair well know but have dismissed as “a price worth paying” to\n secure control\nof oil supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many people’s gut reaction is simply that war is crazy. Socialists \nshare this\nanti-war sentiment. It is one of the reasons why we are Socialists-real \nSocialists that is, not supporters of the sort of state capitalist\ndictatorships that failed in Russia and Eastern Europe, but advocates of\n a united world community without frontiers based on all the Earth’s \nresources,\nnatural and industrial, becoming the common heritage of all humanity and\n being used to satisfy people’s needs instead of for profit. We have \nconcluded that\ncapitalism means war and that therefore to get rid of wars and the \nthreat of wars-and the constant preparation for war represented by \nmaintaining armed\nforces-you have got to get rid of capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That voices are raised against the war, millions of voices, shows \nthat there is\nhope. That workers – whose experience of life stems from using their \nenergies and talents to co-operatively solve problems and achieve goals;\n who realise the\npotential for mutual dependence and support; who enjoy some security of \nlife won through the class struggle – are determined to oppose the war \nshows that\nopposition to war has its basis in material reality rather than mere \nmoral condemnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
War is completely unnecessary. We are living in a world that has \nenough resources to provide plenty for all, to eliminate world poverty, \nignorance and\ndisease, to provide an adequate and comfortable life for everyone on the\n planet. Yet under capitalism resources are squandered on armaments, of\nindividual as well as of mass destruction, and, as now, in actual war. \nEven in times of peace-as the armed truce between wars is \ncalled-capitalism’s pursuit\nof profit pollutes and plunders the planet and upsets the balance of \nnature with potentially devastating consequences. The economic law “no \nprofit, no\nproduction” applies implacably, resulting in millions dying of hunger \nand related diseases every year simply because it is not profitable to \nproduce the\nfood to feed them and, in fact, often while the food that could feed \nthem is destroyed so as to maintain prices and profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As World Socialists, who are opposed to war and to capitalism which breeds it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One World, One People! Unite for World Socialism!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back to the Politics Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n