Statement by Socialist Workers Party Candidates
The Democrats and Republicans in the White House and Congress are preparing a bloodbath against the people of Iraq like the horrible assault President Bush unleashed more than three years ago. During that six-week onslaught tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed and millions left homeless, hungry, and vulnerable to disease. It was one of the most massive, cold-blooded slaughters in modern history.
This misery has been worsened by the strangulation of Iraq through an economic embargo for more than three years that has come down hardest on the toilers--the big majority of the population. According to the U.N. Children's Fund, some 2.5 million children, pregnant women and nursing mothers face severe malnutrition because of food shortages in Iraq.
Washington's goal is not defending democracy nor saving poor little Kuwait from Iraqi tyranny. Clinton's aim, like Bush's, is to impose a virtual protectorate in Baghdad, a reliable regime subservient to big business interests in the United States and to secure greater control over the oil reserves in the Gulf.
Bush failed to overturn the regime in Baghdad and put into place the servile government he wanted. And ever since Washington has been probing for an opportunity to accomplish that goal. It has attempted to keep the pressure on through a cruel embargo against the Iraqi people. In total violation of Iraq's sovereignty, the U.S. government has established a zone where Iraqi planes are not permitted to fly over their own land. And it has continued to fly provocative surveillance flights over Iraq.
Today the Clinton administration, with broad bipartisan support, is preparing another invasion. More than 50,000 troops have been dispatched to the Gulf and 155,000 more are being readied. Massive firepower is being put into place. Clinton's arrogant response to the Iraqi government's announcement that it is pulling back from the military maneuvers inside its borders was to announce on national television that he was driving full speed ahead with the mobilization of U.S. forces--and adding 350 war planes to those already on the way to the Gulf!
The bipartisan war drive against Iraq is not in the interests of working people in the United States. Supporting big business and their politicians in this effort will derail, not help our fight at home against the offensive our profit-hungry employers are waging against us. And it will harm, not help, our ability to forge closer ties of solidarity with fellow workers and farmers in Iraq and other Mideast countries.
Hands Off Iraq! Bring U.S. troops home!
Lift the cruel embargo against Iraq's people!
Not one cent nor one soldier for oil profits in the Persian Gulf!
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Prepared by the MN Socialist Workers '94 Campaign