| People�s Coalition Against the War (PCAW) September 3, 2002 NO TO ANOTHER $ 65 BILLION WAR AGAINST THE IRAQI PEOPLE! �Attack them before they attack us� seems to be the flawed logic of President George Bush Junior and his war freak buddies � Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney, who unleashed a storm of attacks against Iraq and their scapegoat � Saddam Hussein. Even Republicans who are opposed to the US war against Iraq admit, "They [Bush and others] need the war to divert the issue from the [U.S.] economic slump to the patriotic frenzy." PCAW condemns all these frenzied war cries and preparations for the following reasons: 1. Any US initiated "preemptive" strike or war against the Iraqi people will set a negative precedent for other imperialist or nuclear wielding nation to invoke the precedent of "preemptive strike" against any threat (whether real or perceived) from their enemies. 2. " Preemptive strike" decided by the US President will be another unilateral decision made by the Executive and not decided by the US Congress as a whole. This is tantamount to an undeclared war and will commit our nation�s resources � men, women, money and materials into an unproductive endeavor that will only serve the rich and the powerful such as the energy (oil and gas) industries and the military-industrial complex. Not surprisingly, these are the industries to which the industrialist-warmongers Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld belong. 3. A war that the Bush administration wages will escalate the spiral of terror in the Middle East and throughout the whole world. It will fan the flames of hatred between the Middle East & the US, which is being sown by American foreign policies. It will create an atmosphere of an endless war between "two civilizations: the American way of life and the world of Islam." No matter what Bush and his cohorts may say, the line will be drawn and it will be a religious war especially when the US takes Israel�s side against the Palestinian people. 4. Any new war against Iraq is unjust and will be anti-people because ultimately it will bring death and destruction to the already suffering millions of innocent Iraqi people who have been severely punished by the economic and military blockades. Instead of punishing Saddam as the warmongers say, they will be destroying the lives of the Iraqi people. 5. Any new war will be detrimental to the American people who are suffering under intense capitalist exploitation and oppression. Why is there money for war and no money for the ailing US economy? Why spend the money on a war that can be avoided and costly corporate bailouts but not on new jobs for the more than 3.6 million unemployed or supporting valuable social services and programs? Why not use the money that would go into the war to build new schools, open up closed hospitals and clinics and create a universal health care system? Why spend another $ 65B (the amount spent during the Gulf War in 1991) for a new war just to reelect President Bush for another four-year term? Any new war that will be waged by the United States will only stress the fact that the the US is the number one imperialist nation in the world. That it can unilaterally wage a war if it chooses and disreagrd world public opinion. The same way it did when it waged wars against the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Nicaragua, Congo, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and other nations for its "national interests". The backward cowboy mentality of" shoot now and ask later." Enough is enough. We should not let Bush and his corporate gang wage war while more than 3.6M Americans have no jobsand almost 11 million of their families go hungry. We should protest this costly and anti-people war in Los Angeles County where they have already closed much needed hospitals and clinics. We say no war for Oil! No people's blood for capitalist profits! Get organized, act now and stop the war to end the vicious capitalist rip-offs and corporate criminalities! NO MORE WAR! STOP THE WAR! NO WAR AGAINST THE IRAQI PEOPLE! Back to Main Page |