War Hypocrisy (Issue 09)
I thought I’d compile a list of examples regarding the hypocrisy that surrounds this war.
1. Osama Bin Laden was trained by the CIA in the 80’s when had full US support during the war against Russian occupation of Afghanistan. America made Bin Laden the key figure in its attempt to bring the Middle East under the West’s control. His guerrilla forces were built in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan with the aid of Pakistan’s secret police (the most pro-US state in Central Asia). Bin Laden only turned against the US presence in Saudi Arabia when the Saudi royal family allowed brutal western attacks on Iraq during the Gulf war.
2. The 6000 lives lost in New York is terrible, but let us not forget the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that claimed 210, 000 mainly civilian lives. Even the word ‘civilian’ distances you from the fact that there were families of men, women and children. Real people devastated by unforgivable acts. Some may argue that the World Trade Centre attacks were terrorist acts against civilisation and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were strategic war targets. But the purpose of those attacks was also to terrorise and destroy the civilian population and so they to were terrorist acts.
3. Tony Blair declares war against terrorism. Great. He’s spending millions and millions to aid Bush’s attack on Afghanistan -the most devastated country in the world even before the first bomb drops. But if Tony is to focus on terrorism then he should start with the conflict in Northern Ireland, giving as much resources as he can.
“We will make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbour them”
-George Bush 12th September
This would suggest that both Blair and Bush would be pretty concerned that most of the IRA’s funding comes from Irish Americans residing in the US and they were preparing to carpet bomb Michigan -home of the Oklahoma bomber Timmy McDonald
4. George Bush proclaimed a “crusade against terrorism”. The word “Crusade” has very specific historical connotations referring to the onslaught directed by European armies that plundered the Middle East in the 12th and 13th centuries under the guise of religion. The crusades murdered, and looted countries -slaughtering Muslims, Jews and local Christians alike.
5. Remember when we were going to “take out” Saddam Huissan at the start of the Gulf war? He’s still alive now and his regime is stronger than ever before. The official death toll due to sanctions has topped 1.5 million. 41% of these deaths have been children under the age of five. Not to mention the 100 thousand civilians and conscripts killed by the bombing since the Gulf war. Will the same happen in Afghanistan with Osama Bin Laden?
The fact is that hundreds of millions of people around the world are against Bush and against terrorism. Over the last 100 years the tradition that has influenced most revolts against oppression and exploitation is Marxism. It rejects terrorism on the grounds that it often leads to the death of innocents, who bear no responsibility for the brutality of their leaders, but also because such tactics lead away from mass struggles that alone can successfully challenge our rulers.
Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky summed up the Marxist approach 80 years ago, dealing with the utter hypocrisy of our rulers.
Socialists, he argued, have “nothing in common with those bought and paid for moralists who, in response to terrorist acts, make solemn declarations about the ‘absolute value’ of human life. These are the same people who, on other occasions, in the name of other absolute values -for example, the nation’s honour or the monarch’s prestige -are ready to shove millions of people into the hell of war.”
We need to build the biggest ever anti-war movement to stop this cycle of terror and response that has been escalating for years. We need to take to the streets and to organise action from our communities to our workplaces. Since Seattle in November 1999 and Genoa in July 2001 there has been new hope in the world -the hope that mass action can make another world possible. In that hope lies the only real answer to the bitterness and despair that drive a few people to terrorism.