AGAINST THE WAR

By Winfried Wolf

[This March 2004 address is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.friko-berlin.de/texte/040320/winfried_wolf.html.]

Five years ago we demonstrated against breaking a taboo: Germany should not wage war again, an offensive war, with Nato, against Yugoslavia.

Schroeder and Fischer have done what Kohl could not do.

Two years ago we demonstrated against George W. Bush when he announced the coming war against Iraq – with pride and haughtiness and honored by Red-Green… Nevertheless 100,000 persons demonstrated in the streets over two days.

A year and a month ago we demonstrated – together with millions all over the world – with several hundred thousand against the imminent new Iraq war.

This time we applaud the pope and the chancellor for speaking out against the war. Still we know that the former blessed weapons in other wars and the latter allowed US troops to use German territory for the offensive war.

On the background of these experiences, we draw three lessons:

THE FIRST LESSON IS THAT


WAR PRODUCES WAR. WAR AGAINST “TERRORISM” PRODUCES TERRORIST WAR.

US president Bush said yesterday in his speech on the anniversary of the Iraq war: “All of us can agree today that the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator removed a source of violence, aggression and instability.”

We say: The opposite is true, Mr. President!

With the war and after the war, we experienced and experience aggression, violence and instability worldwide in Casablanca, Djerba, Riad, Istanbul and Madrid – and again and again in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Kerbala.

The weapons of mass destruction were not found where they should have been according to the war lies. The weapons of mass destruction are in the US, Russia, China, European states, Pakistan, India and Israel.

These weapons are being optimized, not reduced. Consider the development of US nuclear bombs into so-called mini-nukes – that moves nuclear war closer.

Seven days ago on the night before the election, thousands of Spaniards demonstrated before the party headquarters of the prime minister of lies Aznar. “Our Dead – Your War!” was their theme.

Their demand was: Immediate withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. The election was the next day. How dreadful that this was also the result of a despicable terrorist act!

The demand of the Spanish population is our demand: Immediate withdrawal of the German army from foreign countries. The No to war includes No to all foreign actions.

THE SECOND LESSON IS:


THE DOMESTIC WAR CORRESPONDS TO THE FOREIGN WAR. THE MILITARY QUESTION AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION ARE CLOSELY CONNECTED.

The reactions after the terrorist attacks in Madrid were revealing. For three days, the media was manipulated all over Europe. According to the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, there was even the attempt to call a state of emergency and postpone the election. Otto Schily and his Controletti colleagues in the European Union met immediately. They demanded “new full powers or authorities”, that is dismantling democratic rights and intensified discrimination against millions of fellow citizens. The army should be used at home.

In his play “McKinsey comes”, Rolf Hochhuth rightly declared: The greatest current scandal is that there are as many unemployed in Europe as the population of Spain.

There is an inner connection between unemployment and war. At the Leipzig book fair next week, the largest stand in the exhibition center will be the stand of the German army. This also happened last year.

What does the German army offer the many school classes and teachers who visit the stand? A game of “securing world peace”. Then kids could practice “containment”, “foreign actions” and “preventive wars” up to the use of nuclear bombs.

Note well: the kids practice this as a game. Life begins in earnest when these youths cannot find any civilian jobs, when good-paying jobs are only learning and practicing the war trade with the German army.

The German army attempted something similar at the Frankfurt book fair. In the past, it was unsuccessful and abandoned the experiment. That this functions in the East but not in the West has to do with an unemployment rate twice as high in East Germany than West Germany.

Let me make clear the connections with regard to Agenda 2010 and our demonstration on April 2, 2003:

· The costs for the A400M military transporter equal the “savings” from five years of pension cuts.

· The costs for manufacturing the Euro fighter series are equivalent to the “savings” from five years of cuts in unemployment benefits.

· On the basis of the Pisa study, 240,000 teachers and social workers must be hired to reach the level that existed at the beginning of the seventies in West Germany, until the end in East Germany and today in Finland or Cuba.

A demanding program of conversion is necessary for Germany.

THE THIRD LESSON IS THAT WE DID NOT EXPERIENCE THE END OF HISTORY SINCE 1989/90. WE EXPERIENCE REENTRY IN A REPULSIVE ECONOMIC HISTORY IN WHICH CAPITALISM, COMPETITION AND WAR ARE CLOSELY CONNECTED.

This connection is veiled today with the term “globalization” presented today as the march of capital through the world when jobs in Ammendorf are destroyed, running shoes are made by child labor in Asia, genetic rapeseed oil is cultivated in Saxony-Anhalt or the Berlin rail service to Sweden is sold in a case of cronyism.

The last three wars are integral elements of the new globalization and the old colonialism.

The first, the Balkan war, was the TINA war. The words “There is No Alternative!” were bombed into the Serbian soil. No vision of cooperation and agreement of the people and cooperation existed as between Germany and Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1989.

The second war, the Afghanistan war, was already a war on the way to Caspian Sea oil.

The third war, the Iraq war a year ago, was an open war for oil – for control of ten percent of world oil reserves and control of oil price development. It was and is a war for colonial profit.

The Spanish engagement in Iraq ultimately had this simple explanation. The Spanish oil corporation Repsol was promised an oil concession in Iraq. The corporation received this concession as a gift at the beginning of 2004. This is the reason why Bush and his gang from the oil business don’t understand the decision in Spain and find it ungrateful. However the Spanish voters decided, not the Repsol shareholders.

All who emphasize the leading role of the US government in the current wars are right.

Those who see a way out are wrong. Spanish troops have withdrawn from Iraq… Nevertheless the European Union constitution emphasizes that EU states are obligated to rearmament so the EU can develop into an independent military power and wage its own wars even without Nato and the US.

We say:

A world dominated by a world policeman is repulsive and will be opposed. A world in which two bands of gangsters dominate and organize an arms race isn’t the slightest bit more secure.

Therefore our response to all three lessons is not immanent or geographical.

Rather the decisive boundary lines were clear a year ago with the largest demonstration in the history of humanity.

On February 15, 2003, the US, England, Spain, Poland and Israel opposed “old Europe” and the “Islamic world”.

The people who took to the streets for peace in Washington, New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Cairo and Tel Aviv opposed the war-mongerers in these capitols and elsewhere.

We say:

This power from below must be strengthened and redeveloped again and again. This power alone will be decisive if we would reach peace, development and solidarity.

We say,

Another world is possible.

Another economy is necessary

now, here and everywhere!