The Movement Against War: Five Years of Struggle
Five years ago, George Bush, the Democratic and Republican Parties and the United States government committed what the Nuremberg Court called the “supreme international crime.” They waged a war of aggression against a sovereign nation, and they justified it with lies. They claimed Iraq possessed and was actively developing weapons of mass destruction. But it did not take long for the truth to surface: Bush and big oil interests had been planning this war for years. The real motives of this war are not defensive, nor are they altruistic; they are imperial. The U.S. aimed to ensure its domination of the region by striking down an anti-imperialist government in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East.
Five years later, more than one million Iraqis lie dead. Over four and a half million have become refugees. Entire cities have been reduced to rubble. Basic infrastructure destroyed in the massive “shock and awe” bombing campaign has left 70% of Iraqis without access to safe drinking water and millions without access to effective sanitation. Vast areas of Iraq lack sufficient electricity, with many neighborhoods in Baghdad receiving only 5-6 hours of power a day. Ten million Iraqis maintain a precarious existence through a sanctions-era food rationing system – which the Iraqi puppet government soon plans to eliminate. Unemployment stands at 60-70%. 800,000 children did not go to school last year. Hospitals lack basic medicines and staff. U.S.–sponsored death squads roam the streets. Religious sectarianism, an important tool the U.S. employs in its divide-and-conquer strategy, has led to tens of thousands of murders and kidnappings.
But five years of occupation has also meant five years of struggle. The Iraqi people are not passively standing by while their sovereignty is dismantled in the name of a colonial-style puppet government in the Green Zone, and while the United States and the giant multi-national corporations loot Iraqi oil.
On the contrary, patriotic Iraqis have fought from the first day of occupation for the right to self-determination: the right to determine their own social, political and economic affairs, free from foreign coercion. Across ethnic, social, religious, class, and political lines, Iraqis have united to voice their demand: The occupiers must leave Iraq now!
In the press, this resistance is portrayed as the work of foreign “extremists” who terrorize civilians. Another narrative is that there is no patriotic resistance to occupation, but instead a “sectarian civil war” between Iraqi Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, with the U.S. caught in the cross fire as it tries to keep the peace.
The truth is that the nationalist resistance to occupation, armed and unarmed, is made by millions of Iraqis – teachers, factory workers, employed and unemployed youth, students, ex-Army officers and soldiers, grandparents and mothers, farmers and people from all walks of life. It is understood by every Iraqi who has endured the humiliation of a night raid on their home. It is supported by every Iraqi who has lost a relative to the bullets or bombs of the U.S. military. It is the conscious decision of millions of Iraqis to struggle for dignity, justice and liberation.
The cost of war has hit home as well. To date, nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 30,000 wounded. The war will cost $670,000,000,000 by the end of this year, and is estimated to run past two trillion dollars in the next five years. These are desperately needed resources that could have gone to rebuilding the Gulf Coast, or providing resources for decent housing, jobs, education and healthcare.
Across the U.S., as the economic costs of the war continue to devastate social services, more people begin to understand the need to fight back. A powerful movement against the war is developing. Students are organizing. Labor unions are becoming more active against the war. And groups such as Iraq Veterans Against the War are organizing thousands of active-duty and discharged veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Every year, millions of people turn out to national, regional and local demonstrations against the war. Protest tactics have included mass marches on the Capitol, sit-ins of Congressional offices, counter-recruitment actions, boycotts and picket lines, blockades of military shipments at our ports, walkouts at universities and high schools, civil disobedience, die-ins, and many other creative forms of resistance. Tens of thousands of people, many of them students and youth, have gone to jail for acts of civil disobedience that have raised the level of struggle.
This year, to mark five years of occupation, over 85 high school and college campuses will erupt in protests against the Iraq war. This is an important act of unity and will help build the student antiwar movement. These protests, organized by chapters of Students for a Democratic Society, show the way forward in building a large, unified student movement. They are also important in setting the tone for how we will engage with the presidential elections.
We in Students for a Democratic Society believe in building our own grassroots movement for change and not placing our hopes with the two Democratic contenders: one who voted for the war, the other who votes to fund it. Both Clinton and Obama insist on the stability of the colonial puppet government in the Green Zone as a pre-condition to withdrawal. Thus the occupation would “exit out the door to climb back through the window,” as many Iraqis have pointed out. While Clinton and Obama talk about bringing the troops home, neither of them are willing to commit to a complete and speedy withdrawal. The antiwar movement needs to make sure that these candidates know that every day of occupation is a crime. We are united with the Iraqi people in demanding, “Troops out now!”
It is the people, and the people alone, who make history. It is up to us to end this war, and indeed it is our responsibility. The strength of the anti-occupation forces in Iraq and the antiwar movement here at home will be the real driving force in ending the occupation. There is much work to be done. Many twists and turns lie ahead, and it is possible that the war will continue for many more years. But however long it takes, we will never cease to struggle, tying the hands of the war-makers and working with all our hearts to end the occupation of Iraq.
No to imperialism!
Iraq for Iraqis – Troops Out Now!
UNC-Chapel Hill SDS
March 17, 2008
