Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 12:57:18 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: The desperate war plans against Iraq


The desperate war plans against Iraq
[Posted: 22.02.98]

[This is sent to besieged M-G mailing list and to newsgroups.]

It certainly has been heartening to hear the protests in the USA
and elesewhere against the present serious imperialist plans to
bomb Iraq.

What one must wonder is what the main reactionaries are hoping
to achieve with such an aggression at this time, or what they
are really afraid of. It hardly is any real big threat to their
interests by the murky Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who now gets
a certain support from peoples in the Middle East precisely
as the (supposed) target of such vile imperialist plans.

There must be revolutionary or consistently anti-imperialist
sentiments growing in a number of countries. And the biggest
reactionaries above all are out to try to quell this.

The letter of former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark to the UN
on 28.01, forwarded to (ex-)M-G by Sid C., was a good one. It
didn't of course give an answer to the question of why these
war plans. The same goes for the article by the National Secre-
tary of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States in the
journal "New International" (No. 7, 1991), forwarded by Juan F.

There isn't much of inter-imperialist rivalry showing up in 
these war plans. There in the main are two blocs, one more
aggressive and more powerful led by the USA, which is practi-
cally the only country that has the capability of large-scale
military intervemtion in the 3rd world, and another which is
not so keen on such an aggression but whose protests, if any,
are very lame. It's the most aggressive imperialism against
the peoples of the world. 

The SWP article i.a. said that

>For example, Germany and Japan's drives to find ways to be 
>able to act militarily abroad despite constitutional bans on 
>such action, such as through a "EuroForce."

As for Germany, that medium-sized imperialist state is quite
obedient to the USA, and undertakes military actions abroad
only under its aegis. Japan still is relatively very weak mili-
tarily, spending only some 1% of its GNP on its armed forces
as against some 4-5% by the USA and, a little less, by Great 
Britain. The planned "Euroforce" is in fact in the main a pro-
ject for some independence in defense matters of the dominating 
imperialism and has little or nothing to do with e.g. the Middle
East.

Is the present war threat in any basic way about "blood for
oil"? Hardly. There are enormous reserves of oil and natural
gas in many places around the world, only the very cheapest
comes from some Middle East countries, and the oil price
at present is, relatively speaking, not very high. (It *is* 
being held enormously high for consumers, for reactionary 
political reasons, above all.)

Typical for present-day imperialism concerning such raw 
materials as oil, uranium etc is that it's *against* their 
large-scale extraction and use everywhere in the world. Uranium
extraction in the world is on the decline, peaking in 1984,
which reflects one extreme anti-modern political campaign. Pre-
cisely against the use of oil etc was the recent big conference 
in Kyoto, under the pretext of - invented - "man-made global 
warming". Imperialism since 2-3 decades back is turning 
*against* the world's industrial development - which is also
a form of warfare, the "green" warfare against the peoples,
and this already, "bloodlessly" and to the loud tunes of mas-
sive so-called "environmentalist" arch-hypocritical reactionary 
propaganda, likewise directed against revolution in the world,
has cost millions of lives.

Protest against the anti-industrial and anti-people "sustained
development" warfare of the imperialists!

No war against Iraq!! 

Rolf M.

[For (ex-)M-G: This post measured at 3.8 kB]



     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---