RW ONLINE: George Bush's Worst Week George Bush's Worst Week

Revolutionary Worker #1189, February 2, 2003, posted at rwor.org

We received the following article from A World to Win News Service:

February 17, 2003. It was George Bush's worst week since he declared war on the world after September 11. First the UN Security Council refused to back the U.S.'s call for war without delay. Then the next day and in the days following, in a magnificent outpouring of the world's people, millions upon millions took to the streets, including in scores of cities in the U.S.

The protests were especially enormous in Britain, Spain, Italy and Australia, the countries whose governments are most closely aligned with Bush. London had not seen so many people in the street since the end of World War 2; the crowds in Spain were bigger than at any time since the celebration of the end of fascism. Further, February 15 was also historic in the extent of these simultaneous actions, stretching through 600 cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as the wealthy countries. It has been proven beyond any doubt that the people of the world are opposed to this war and that if Bush and other leaders go ahead with it anyway, they can expect an unprecedented storm on a world scale.

The February 14 Security Council meeting was a big setback for the U.S. It was a personal humiliation for Colin Powell, Bush's would-be diplomatic weapon of mass destruction. His presentation of America's case against Saddam Hussein to that body a week earlier was explicitly rejected and implicitly ridiculed. Even one of Powell's most puffed-up moments then, when he brandished spy-in-the-sky photos to prove that Iraq is moving around and hiding weapons to evade inspections, was deflated. Chief chemical and biological weapons inspector Hans Blix argued that the scene shown in the pictures "could just as easily have been a routine activity". In the debate following, 11 out of the 15 Security Council members agreed, to one extent or another, with France's proposal that the inspections should continue. The U.S.'s hopes to introduce a resolution endorsing immediate military action collapsed. A meeting of the five permanent Security Council members with veto power that was supposed to follow this debate did not even take place.

At home, Bush responded with his own version of Goebbel's Big Lie, the principle that if you say anything loud and often enough, some people will believe it. He played the "terrorism" card, fabricating a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda and organizing hysteria on a mass scale in an effort to make some Americans believe that this war will not be naked aggression but self-defense. Some people bought the government's efforts to make them believe that their family's lives are in danger from monsters under every bed. A great many others refused to seal their lips and minds with duct tape and demonstrated instead. Hundreds of thousands massed in front of the UN headquarters in New York despite threats and some attacks from mounted police. This protest included people of all social classes and family members of people killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, Bush's pretext for launching a global rampage.

Politically it would be extremely difficult for the U.S. to launch this war without some sort of international alliance. Further, British troops are a major and integral part of the war plan, as are US bases in Italy and military facilities in Spain. Yet these governments are in such a flagrant split with the people of their countries that the Spanish newspaper

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