Stop the Drive to War!
Vigorously Mobilise for February 15!

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Stop the Drive to War! Vigorously Mobilise for February 15!

As HMS Ocean and Ark Royal go to sea in the drive to go to war against Iraq, the people's forces are stepping up their actions and mobilising to prevent war. On Saturday, January 18, millions of people throughout the world will demonstrate, as a manifestation of their unity and will to ensure that Bush and Blair are stopped from carrying out their aggression against Iraq. Mobilising is also carrying on apace for the massive demonstration through London on February 15, which even the police predict will be half-a-million strong. The people are declaring Not In Our Name! to Bush and Blair and are determined that the people's will for peace will prevail and are organising for the coming battles ahead if war should break out.

US imperialism is becoming increasingly reckless as it struggles to transcend its economic and political crisis by going to war. In its drive to impose its "New World Order" it is stopping at nothing to dominate the Middle East because of the oil resources and the crucial strategic position of this region. It is challenging the European powers that they should also toe the American line, and is positioning itself to bring Asia under its control also.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair in allying himself with George W Bush in defiance of the sentiment of the vast majority of the working people of Britain is himself becoming increasingly desperate. His desperation is shown in his attempts to justify what cannot be justified, in his determination that no problem facing society will be solved, in his desire to divert from the crisis facing the social system, in his wilful ignoring of all progressive solutions to the problems of national rights, to the problems of the national economy. His desperation is also in evidence in the way that the government is refusing to accept responsibility for the fate of society and the people. He is desperately repeating over and over that Iraq must be disarmed, while at the same time claming that no "smoking gun" will be necessary for Britain to go to war to topple Saddam.

While Blair and Bush clutch at straws over empty and outdated so-called "warheads", the question must be asked who it is that is guilty of all the crimes that Saddam Hussein is accused of. It is of course first and foremost US imperialism, with successive British governments and other capitalist powers in its wake. It is in this spirit that demonstrations are taking place at British and US bases, and citizens' inspections teams set up. Britain itself of course possesses weapons of mass destruction and threatens to use them, which would be another terrible crime against humanity. The US and Britain themselves stand behind the crimes allegedly carried out by the Iraq regime against its people. Britain has its own nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons. It is even documented how it released bacteria into the air over southern Britain in the 1960s in military tests, including in London. And who knows what the government is carrying out in secret today.

Tony Blair alleges that we owe it to future generations to "disarm" Iraq. But meanwhile the youth in this country are being denied a secure future and the youth are joining the battle as well. Neither will Tony Blair settle accounts with Britain's colonialist and imperialist past, so as to pursue the same arrogant and criminal course in the present, only writ large, and carried out with high-sounding sentiments. For the nefarious interests of Britain's own ruling circles, Tony Blair is siding with the imperatives of the US dictate. This has the way things have gone after September 11, where September 11 is almost forgotten. At same time as "demonising" Saddam, the government is also demonising "terrorists" here, singling out asylum seekers from north Africa, gun crime and drug trafficking of Jamaicans, and so on and so forth.

"Why Saddam, why Iraq" has all these answers. Blair is on the defensive about oil, saying Saddam would love to sell oil. But plunder and control is what imperialism and globalisation is all about, especially in this time of crisis. This is the reason Bush and Blair are focusing on Iraq, an ancient civilisation which they have done everything possible to wreck in the past 10 years. Who can Saddam possibly threaten? Bush/Blair have done everything possible to crush the dignity of that people and the regime. The sanctions against the Iraqi people themselves have been the biggest weapon of mass destruction. How many millions of people just in Iraq have died as a direct result?

In response, the working class must take the lead in calling on the people to take a stand of principle and uniting them to stop the war before it begins and to bring a different world into being. The stop-the-war committees and forums that exist and are being built must take their place and be consolidated as people's tribunes; representing their will against war and for peace and a different world. Let us go all out to prevent Bush and Blair's war and take a stand for international peace and justice.

Vigorously mobilise for February 15! No war on Iraq!