Baghdad, Jan. 24: Thousands of Iraqis take to the streets to demand the U.S. military leave.
By Jennifer Lin
The Iraqi people are demanding an end to over 16 years of U.S. occupation. On January 24, over 1 million Iraqis flooded the streets, chanting anti-U.S. slogans and demanding that U.S. troops leave the country immediately. This is part of an ongoing series of protests that began last October. The Iraqi people are demanding that the U.S. respect their right to self-determination, free from imperialist domination. The protests transcend religious, ethnic, and political divides.
Like the British colonizers a century before, the U.S. has pursued a “divide and rule” strategy in Iraq, inflaming religious and ethnic tensions in Iraq in order to plunder the country’s oil wealth. The latest wave of protests follows the assassination of revered Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a U.S. drone attack in Baghdad on January 3. Both were leaders in the fight against ISIS in the region. Although the Iraqi Parliament voted to expel all U.S. forces following the assassination, troops remain.
The Iraqi people have created a united front demanding an end to the repressive policies of a government that is beholden to U.S. economic and political interests. They recognize that they have more in common with one another than any ruling elite. They recognize that U.S. imperialism and democracy cannot coexist.
U.S. imperialism is a threat to national sovereignty and democracy everywhere. We have more in common with the workers of the world than the rich capitalists who will stop at nothing to steal everything that belongs to us: our land, our wealth, our freedom. We must stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and demand “U.S. out of Iraq!”
Jan. 4: An emergency march and rally was called by the New Orleans Workers Group to protest U.S. imperialist war and to demand U.S. out of the Middle East.
Money for Schools, Hospitals, Jobs! No Blood for Oil!
With the support of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Trump administration is moving to start another war—this time against Iran. We need to educate our fellow workers and stop this from happening!
The recently published “Afghanistan Papers” reveal how both Republican and Democratic administrations and generals lied to the American people for 18 years, costing the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers and more than 100,000 Afghan men, women, and children. During this time, the Pentagon looted the national budget to the tune of $1,000,000,000,000. This money could have been used to meet human needs. No worker should be tricked into going along with these imperialist wars that serve no purpose other than to make capitalists rich and destroy the lives of workers.
More lies from U.S. warmongers
Each new war requires new lies to justify it, but they all serve the same purpose: to enrich war profiteers, oil companies, banks and dictators. Who loses? The people of all the countries involved.
In 2003 George W. Bush invaded Iraq after sanctions had killed half a million children. U.S. war hawks and their mouthpieces in the capitalist owned media cited the World Trade Center attack and weapons of mass destruction as pretexts. On Sept. 11, 2006 George Bush finally admitted, “Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with the World Trade Center attack.” The weapons of mass destruction were also debunked. Yet none of this stopped the bombings. U.S. capitalists’ desire for Iraq’s oil fields and markets outlived the lies that they sold the public.
Iraqi workers of all religions are in the Popular Mobilization Forces that were bombed by the U.S. on December 29, killing 32 people. All across the country, Iraqis are rebelling against horrible conditions, which result from U.S. invasion and occupation and a corrupt U.S. installed government. Yet the U.S. is blaming Iran for the rebellion of the Iraqi masses. This is just another lie to justify the deployment of 4,000 more U.S. soldiers to the region. What is being hidden by the corporate media, with its links to the U.S. military, is the truth.
Dec. 31: Thousands of Iraqis storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to demand an end to U.S. occupation and terror. The U.S. govt. ordered a strike on the anti-ISIS Popular Mobilization Forces on Dec. 29, killing 32 people and injuring many more.
U.S. bombed Iraq for oil again
As part of the popular uprisings sweeping the country, protesters recently seized a major oil field in Iraq to demand that the oil wealth be used for jobs and social needs. This was on December 28. After the U.S. bombing on December 29, thousands of Iraqis swarmed the U.S. embassy demanding the U.S. get out. The U.S. strategy in Iraq has been to divide the people by religious and national differences but recent protests have been bringing all the groups together. U.S. rulers fear this unity. This has nothing to do with Iran.
But for the U.S. capitalist class and its puppets in the government, the storming of the embassy provided another pretext to threaten war against Iran and send more troops and bombers to the region. So strong is the popular movement that even the U.S.-backed client Iraqi government had to condemn the bombings and troop deployments. They have stated that they will not allow their country to be used as a base against Iran.
The U.S. capitalist class wants to win back the oil revenue it lost when the Iranian people overthrew the government of their friend and brutal dictator, the Shah. The Iranians will defend their country to make sure that they never suffer another murderous U.S.-puppet government.
The Iranians have done everything to avoid war. It was the Trump administration that pulled out of the nuclear agreement which Iran nevertheless continued to abide by, as verified by the United Nations. Despite Iran’s exceptional restraint, Trump recently ordered the illegal assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top military commander as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). Soleimani and the PMF had been leading the fight against ISIS in Iraq since 2014. This just shows how fraudulent the claim is that the U.S. military is occupying the Middle East to “defeat ISIS.”
It’s time to take it to the streets to show that we won’t fall for the lies and deceit of the oil companies and the war profiteers, nor will we condone these imperialist wars against humanity.
No war on Iran! End The Sanctions! U.S. out of the Middle East! No More Blood for Oil!
Anti-government protests have continued in Iraq since early October.
By Jennifer Lin
Protesters in Iraq are demanding the resignation of their government that is a product of U.S. imperialist occupation. Iraqis had built for themselves a highly developed country before the U.S. government destroyed it for access to its oil. After the Iraq monarchy was overthrown in 1958, British and American oil companies were kicked out and the oil was nationalized. By 1990, Iraq had the highest standard of living in the Middle East. The literacy rate was around 80% and people had access to free healthcare and education. More women were in the Iraqi parliament than in the U.S. Congress. Iraq’s children’s hospital accepted patients from all over the Middle East for free.
Determined to free themselves of U.S. imports, Iraq was moving to produce its own food as it did before British occupation. Similarly, they were moving to cut dependence on other industrial goods. Not buying U.S. commodities, using oil for their own national development: these were the real “crimes” that led to the U.S. wars.
Documents prove that the U.S. CIA considered Saddam a reliable ally when he was suppressing left and nationalist elements. But as soon as he implemented policies aimed at uplifting the working class and making Iraq economically self-sufficient, he became a threat to the economic and political dominance of the U.S. corporations.
To block the self-determination of the Iraqi people, the U.S. bombed the country in 1991. More than 90% of the country’s electrical capacity and most of its telecommunications, irrigation, water purification, and hydroelectric systems were destroyed. Bombs were aimed at farms, schools, hospitals, public transit stations, mosques, and historic sites. Around 200,000 people were killed, and the depleted-uranium missiles used by the U.S. led to tens of thousands more cancer-related deaths in the following years. Sanctions killed over half a million children.
In 2000, Saddam stopped accepting U.S. dollars as payment for oil. This was unprofitable for the U.S. capitalist class, so the U.S. invaded the country again. Bush invented propaganda accusing Iraq of developing weapons of mass destruction, but this was just a lie used to justify the invasion so the U.S. could control Iraq’s oil wealth. After the invasion, most of Iraq’s economy was either destroyed, shut down, or privatized. Poverty and unemployment skyrocketed.
The U.S. occupation was a bonanza for war profiteers and an assault on the working class. Both Iraqi and U.S. workers bore the costs of this violent imperialist war, as U.S. taxpayer dollars were stolen to fund the destruction of Iraqi lives and livelihoods.
The U.S. trained and armed Special Police Commandos to quell resistance. These death squads terrorized civilians with open gunfire, torture, arrests, and mass murders. Continued U.S. involvement in Iraq fomented sectarian violence and pushed people to join the Islamic State, locking Iraq in a state of perpetual warfare. In 2014, Obama sent troops to Iraq to “fight terrorism,” but this was just another lie used to maintain the U.S. military stronghold in the country.
On October 1, 2019 Iraqi people from all walks of life took to the streets to demand an end to the succession of repressive governments that have ruled the country since the U.S. invasion. Beholden to the ruling elites of Iraq and the U.S., these governments have stripped the Iraqi people of jobs and access to public services.
Protesters have rejected President Salih’s promises for reform, demanding that the entire government be removed from power. Despite violent repression by security forces, the Iraqi people are refusing to back down.
U.S. Ignores Poverty, Tries to Use Protests to Attack Iran
The U.S. government which only represents the oil companies and big business is not interested in the conditions of workers in Iraq or anywhere else. Always seeking to use a situation for their own purposes, however, the U.S. working through the most reactionary clerics have tried to cast the protests as anti-Iran as this fits the agenda of the U.S. There is no credible evidence that any but a small grouping are buying into this.
Workers have nothing to gain from U.S. imperialism, which imposes capitalist poverty on other countries to make the world safe for U.S. corporate control. U.S. imperialism crushes democracy wherever it goes, as the history and current situation of Iraq show. Our struggle to live a healthy life with access to jobs, food, housing, and healthcare is connected to the ongoing struggle of the Iraqi people. Our hard-earned money is stolen and used to destroy the livelihoods of Iraqi people rather than to fund public programs that would benefit us. We must stand in solidarity with any country resisting U.S. imperialism and call for an end to U.S. intervention in the country.
From top to bottom: Santiago, Chile, October 25, 2019; Baghdad, Iraq, October 25, 2019; Beirut, Lebanon, October 24, 2019; Algiers, Algeria on October 29, 2019.
As Syria fights the last battles of its over 7-year war against U.S. and Israeli-backed terrorist insurgency, it still faces many challenges and a rough road ahead. This long, dirty war which has been fueled by the US and its allies, has cost 500,000 Syrian lives and an estimated $400 billion in damages. The war has driven 10 million Syrians to flee their homes, creating one of the worst refugee crises in the world today. Needless to say, despite their celebrating their victories against terrorism and invasion, the people in Syria will live with the trauma of this war for generations.
However, western imperialism and its puppets in the middle east are still aggressively harassing the Syrian people and the Syrian army. In the past 18 months Israel has shot over 200 missiles into Syria. The U.S. still maintains its illegal invasion of Syrian territory, with 12 military bases and up to 2,000 special operations soldiers. U.S. Generals (Trump’s best friends) continue to regularly threaten Syria with further bombing and invasion.
Syria is now openly engaged in the early stages of what could be the last major battle of the war. Most of the western-backed terrorist forces, Al Queada, ISIS, al-NUSRA, which the U.S. has branded as terrorists are the so called “rebels” receiving support from the U.S. and Israel. They are concentrated in the northwestern city of Idlib, and the Syrian Army is preparing for an offensive with the support if its allies. They have had to make these preparations and conduct negotiations in the face of the aforementioned bombings and constant threats of intervention from imperialist politicians.
But why are the imperialists being so aggressive and threatening when Syria is close to ending its war? The answer is clear if you look at the history of U.S. war-mongering in the middle east: the imperialists make money off of wars and stealing natural resources, so they’ll only allow peace if they can hold a dominant, colonizer position.
Just within my generation, the U.S. has invaded and devastated Iraq, Libya and Afganistan. These countries, home to some of the world most ancient civilizations, had long been victims of western intervention and aggression, but they remained relatively stable until the U.S. and its allies invaded. They all now lay in ruins.
In Libya, the U.S. invasion caused the growth of a domestic slave trade as well as terrible sectarian violence between warlord and fundamentalist groups. In Iraq, the U.S.-installed government is viciously repressing protests where everyday Iraq citizens are demanding basic necessities like food and water and jobs. Afganistan has never seen an end to violence since the U.S. invaded, and NATO today uses the war-torn country as a military training ground. Last year the U.S. even dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb in Afganistan. One thing is for sure: the military industrial complex and the oil executives are laughing to the bank every time workers and oppressed people in the U.S. believe the lies that they feed us on the corporate media to justify these wars.
We should express our support for Syria in in their struggle against imperialism and for their right to self determination. We also must voice our opposition to the threats that U.S. politicians and generals have been issuing and demand that the U.S. & Israel stop their attacks and pull their troops out of Syria. Only then can Syrian workers rebuild their communities and advance their struggles against capitalist and imperialist oppression.
