A War by the U.S. to "Liberate the Iraqi People"?...

GIVE US A BREAK!

by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP,USA--April 6, 2003

posted at http://rwor.org

Bush and the rest claim to be waging war "to liberate the Iraqi people." But what they are doing is not new--and it has nothing to do with liberation. It is a pattern, repeated over and over again, that the rulers of the U.S. seek to crush any force, anywhere in the world, that gets in the way of their imperial rule and their imperialist interests. And it has never mattered to these imperialists whether those they are seeking to bring down are actually a brutal and tyrannical clique or a popular force supported by the masses of people.

The Saddam Hussein regime is a brutal reactionary dictatorship--that is true--but for many years he was backed and aided by the U.S. government exactly because his brutal dictatorship and its actions served the interests of these imperialists. Now he no longer serves a useful purpose for them--now, he is in the way--so the Iraqi people must be subjected to massive bombing and invasion to "liberate" them from Saddam Hussein--and put them under the more direct rule of the U.S.

And how about leaders in other countries who came to office through elections that are at least as "democratic" as U.S. elections? For example, Allende in Chile in the early 1970s, or Lumumba in the Congo in the early 1960s, or before that Arbenz in Guatemala and Mossadegh in Iran--all of whom came to office as a result of elections but were then removed from office through bloody coups and attacks directed by the CIA.

Or what about popular revolutionary leadership which clearly has the support of the great majority of the people in their country, as with Ho Chi Minh and the "Vietcong" in Vietnam? Well, the imperialist rulers of the U.S. certainly couldn't have that, so they unleashed a war of mass destruction and slaughter, killing several million Vietnamese and devastating large parts of their country, in the vain attempt to bludgeon them into accepting the dictates of Washington and Wall St.

These are just a few examples illustrating the long, bloody history of what the U.S. imperialists have done around the world. In country after country, they have declared for themselves the right to intervene, or outright invade, to drench the land in blood and subject the people to slaughter and torture, all in the effort to ensure that there is a government subordinate to and serving the interests of the U.S. empire.

This provides some historical perspective with which to judge the pious proclamations of the present regime ruling in Washington, presiding over and seeking to further extend U.S. imperialism's position of domination over peoples and nations throughout the world. It brings some reality to their claims to be "liberating" the Iraqi people!



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