[Marxism] Not in Our Name Ad

["Hans G. Ehrbar" <ehrbar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Not in Our Name

http://www.notinourname.net/ad.htm

is soliciting money for the following ad to be published in
New York City, San Francisco, and Baghdad:


> We believe that as people living in the United States it is
> our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our
> government, in our names.

> The horrible photos of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by
> U.S. soldiers have shown everyone what occupation really
> is. This reality is shattering the U.S. government's claims
> that it has brought "liberation" to Iraq.

> Our government wants us to believe these acts are an
> "exception." They are not. The International Red Cross and
> others have long documented "systematic abuses" by
> U.S. military and "contractors".

> Such torture remains a part of the machinery of war and
> repression designed to dehumanize and terrorize people into
> submission. However, the Iraqi people have refused to submit
> because it is THEIR country and they have no wish to become
> subjects of empire.

> We want the Iraqi people to know that many millions of
> people living in the U.S. are outraged and deeply shamed by
> the immoral and unjust war and occupation being carried out
> in our namesdespite our continuing and growing resistance.

> As people living in the United States we demand that our
> government end its occupation of Iraq immediately and fully
> respect the absolute right of self-determination of the
> Iraqi people, free of foreign intervention and domination.

> US out of Iraq now!


This text is little more than imperialist damage control
after the prison horrors have become public.  It calls the
photos horrible, not the acts themselves.  It does not even
say a peep about it that such acts of torture are the kind
of things that necessarily accompany a colonial or
imperialist system.  The US government does these things not
only "in our names" but the US population has long been
benefiting economically, at least in a short-sighted sense,
from the imperialist system upheld by such actions.  It
calls the war on Iraq "immoral and unjust", as if it was an
aberration unrelated to the American way of life.


It does not apologize for the failure of the left in the US
to make the torture in the prisons an issue before the US
ruling class themselves leaked the photos.  We need to be
aware that these prison conditions were widely known in Iraq
for a long time.  This ad is just another version of Bush's
"this unamerican" slogan.  Its publication in Iraq will be
an embarrassment for the US Left.


I wish we would be able to tell the fighters in Iraq: the US
left has been aware of the conditions in the prisons for a
long time.  Now that they have finally grabbed the
headlines we will use this uproar to educate the US
population about the true nature of imperialism.  This
scandal has made it possible to stop the war in Iraq, and we
will go all out to seize this opportunity.


There are other scandals waiting to happen in Iraq.  For
instance we all know that many areas in Iraq are
contaminated by Depleted Uranium.  Are we going to wait for
the ruling class too before we raise a stink about this?
How much has the US Left protested the privatisation of the
Iraqi economy (and also very recently of the Haitian
economy)?  The marxism list has over 500 subscribers, but
nevertheless we are not leaders, we are followers of the
latest fad.


Hans G. Ehrbar



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