Millionaires go to WAR! – Expect world’s workers to fight for them!!!
Topic: Imperialism and war
The history of resistance to war, often by those soldiers and sailors conscripted to fight it is always buried when our rulers celebrate their historic achievements in sending workers off to kill each other. From the mutinies of World War One, WWII and Vietname to the general strike of the Tragic Week against Spanish imperialism it is important to remember that we can and have ended the bloody wars imposed on us by our rulers. (Image soldiers council of the Prinzregent Luitpold who with others organised the mutiny that ended World War One).
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Review: Refueling Peace website
Refueling Peace is one of the many anti-war groups that has sprung up over the last year. They have defined themselves around a very specific purpose, to "monitor and stop US military flights refuelling in Ireland". The information gathering aspect of this is proving essential in moving the Shannon refuelling issue to the centre of the Irish anti-war movements.
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A plan for the anti-war movement
Polls show most people in Ireland oppose the war, and refuelling at Shannon, yet the government continue to provide support for the US and British war drive. This is yet another demonstration of how meaningless parliamentary democracy is. Unless we are talking of marches of tens or hundreds of thousands we won’t frighten the government into a change of policy. If the Iraq war is like other recent imperialist ones – where the actual fighting happens over a period of weeks rather then years – then its unlikely we will see tens of thousands mobilised. There is one way we can stop the war – this is mass direct action.
Report on January 2003 anti-war protest at Shannon airport during which an attempt was made to gain access to the runway and the roof tops of the airport were occupied.
George Bush’s claim that the war in Iraq was won last May now seems very premature. Saddam may have been caught but US troops are increasingly confined to their bases or to mounting large patrols out of them, at constant risk of ambush. But what is life like for the Iraqi workers caught under the occupation and all too often in the cross-fire?
At the end of the year the organisation called the Irish Anti War Movement went through an internal crisis as some of those involved tried to democratise it. When the Socialist Workers Party who controlled the IAWM responded by arranging the expulsion of some of its opponents from the committee most of the independent groups reacted by disaffiliating from the IAWM.
George Bush declared major combat operations to be over on May 1st, 2003. 139 US soldiers had been killed by that date. Two years later over ten times that number have died. No one knows how many Iraqis have been killed, as the Americans aren’t even bothering to count. Estimates like that published in Lancet last October suggested a likely death toll of around 100,000.
Anarchists are for the defeat of British imperialism. We would like to see an end to the killings in the 6 counties but we understand that the ultimate cause of the troubles lies at the feet of Britain and the northern sectarian statelet. But we want more, we stand for the creation of a new society in the interests of the working class and against the bosses, both orange and green.
The IRA CEASEFIRE is approaching its first anniversary. That year has been striking for two things, on the one hand the success of the ‘peace process’ in turning Sinn Féin from demonised pariahs to lauded peace makers. On the other hand, the failure of the process to produce any substantial gains for the nationalist community.