Radio Havana Editorial: Is US War Against Iraq Inevitable?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The stance of this editorial is exactly right.  And it highlights the
important of setting aside our various political differences and
organizational concerns and turning NOW toward an all-out effort to build
the biggest possible march on Washington January 18.

Although Washington is driving toward war, it is swimming against a growing
trend toward worldwide resistance, of which the antiwar protests are one
important part.  This trend will not be decisively reversed even if
Washington and London, with support from a more-or-less reluctant
"multilateral" coven of imperialist allies, go ahead with their criminal
invasion plans.
Fred Feldman

>From Radio Havana, Cuba,
Broadcasting from Cuba - Free Territory In
The Americas
December 24th, 2002

Is A US War Against Iraq Inevitable?

This time of year we should be thinking and talking about peace and
prosperity. But unfortunately those pleasant thoughts have been pushed aside
by the drums of war being beaten relentlessly by Washington as the most
powerful nation on earth tries to convince the rest of the world that war
with Iraq is inevitable.

Making use of its global control over the means of communications, the US
government is managing to mold international opinion in its favor, to the
extent that now most people rather than wondering if there will be war, are
asking when.

One of the few voice to disagree, at least partially, with the great
campaign has been German Chancellor, Gerhardt Schoeder, who has publicly
refused to accept the inevitability of a war against Baghdad and who has
declared that he favors a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Unfortunately, the German government's position is only partial because on
the other hand Berlin has agreed to allow the US bases on its territory to
be used as a staging ground for the war as well as allowing US war planes to
fly through German airspace on missions against Iraq. But at least it
questions whether such a war is a fait accompli; whether the people of Iraq
must once again be bombed and massacred as they were by the United
States-led attacks ten years ago.

Can this aggression against the Arab nation be avoided? And if so, how?

It unquestionable that the government of Saddam Hussein has done everything
possible to avoid another aggression against it. It has opened up its
arsenals and chemical and pharmaceutical industries to UN weapons
inspectors. It turned over a more than 11,000-page document detailing its
arms programs and it invited the Central Intelligence Agency to participate
in inspections.

But the reply to each of those gestures has been more threats and more war
preparations, because the decision to attack was made long ago and is part
of a plan for global domination which has nothing to do with world security
or with the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

And if that is not the case, why doesn't the United States come down on
Israel, a nation that is violating all the norms of international
co-existence and that openly confesses to possessing hundreds of nuclear
warheads? Instead, Washington castigates countries like North Korea for
simply attempting to develop a nuclear program. The problem is that
Washington has assigned Tel Aviv the role of policeman of the Middle East
along with a good part of the Arab world, since it is advantageous for the
United States to have a militarily prepared proxy in the region, ready to
strike at a moment's notice.

It is urgently necessary to call on all the forces able to stop the imperial
crusade for control of the oil world. We must appeal to social
organizations, environmentalists, the labor movement, students and must
importantly, to US society itself, because it will be Americans who will
fill many of the body bags containing the victims of battle. It is the
reasonable people of this world who must refuse to join in the calls for
war, who must reject the war plans, because even though it has already been
decided upon by the US power-elite, it doesn't have to be inevitable if the
people refuse to allow it to happen.


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