Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 22:03:27 -0800
Subject: M-G: Re: Response to Rolf's "The desperate war plans against Iraq"


On 22 Feb. 1998, Rolf Martens wrote: 

> 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.
>
> [...]
>
> 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, ...[t]he 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.


Actually, it was I who added those notes, including the one you are here
referring to.  What I was talking about was the grumbling that started
coming from Germany and Japan about being cut out of the deal when Iraqi
war "reparations" were being discussed because they did not commit
troops.  Parts of the German ruling class, if I recall correctly, then
began to push for a strong EuroForce with power to be committed offshore
if need be.  It never got off the ground due to opposition from other
European Union member states who feared.


Rolf also wrote:

> Is the present war threat in any basic way about "blood for
> oil"? Hardly. 

Maybe not in any direct sense.  What the US rulers hoped for was the
replacement of Hussein, whom was deemed an unreliable ally at best, and
at worst a threat to US allies and US interests in the region, with a
more subservient regime.  He was useful while the Iran-Iraq War raged,
but once that ended he became a distasteful companion.  That is not so
different, not at all different, than what happened to Noriega in
Panama.  The difference is that whereas in the US people still believe
that the invasion of Panama was about saving democracy and bringing a
drug dealer to justice, that Vietnam was about protecting an erstwhile
friend from aggression, etc., when asked about the Iraq situation, no
one seems to not believe its about economics, the economics of oil. 
Everyone's eyes are open, and indeed the emperor has no clothes!
Of course, it is still a long step from this realization to siding with
the Iraqi toilers against imperialist war.  People here have not taken
that step. Many still believe that "we shoulda got 'im the first time",
but not many believe that it can be done cleanly now even if such a
course were to be decided upon.  It is now known that the "smart" bombs
were not so smart; that milk factories and civilian bomb shelters were
targetted and hit; that the Patriot missile batteries in Israel failed
to prevent a single SCUD from strikingm and that those SCUDS that were
hit by Patriots did more damage than those which got through intact;
that what confronted the Allies in Kuwait was a collection of ill-led,
ill-supplied, conscripts, victims of the Baathist regime, and that the
best units of the Republican Guard are still there, ready to fight.  
People are frustrated by the reports in the media of Saddam defying us,
as if there were actually an "us", as if the UN represented "us", as if
the US ruling class represened "us". They support military action out of
this frustration, but the lustre has gone from the imperialist war
machine and its actions.  
These are not big developments, and they won't stop war or protect our
brothers and sisters in Iraq.  But, when people talk of the situation as
one of "blood for oil" it represents a big change in perception.


- Juan


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