The issue was never weapons of mass destruction—which did not exist—or a genuine fear on the part of the Bush administration that Iraq posed a threat. On the contrary, the conspirators who prepared the invasion of Iraq counted on the fact that the country was essentially defenseless.
The Bush administration chose to go to war with Iraq because it knew that the country was bled white, devastated by the sanctions, incapable of serious military resistance, and, consequently, ripe for the taking. It was an act of plunder, motivated by the desire to lay hold of Iraq’s vast oil resources and position American troops at the center of the Middle East, a strategic position which would give US imperialism a decisive advantage over all its rivals, both European and Asian.
This is a war crime in the fullest sense of the word. Under the Nuremberg precedent, the planning and preparation of aggressive war is a crime against humanity. The record of such planning and preparation by those who today wield power is ample. In the months before September 11, 2001, for example, Cheney’s closed-door energy task force, which included top US energy executives, pored over maps of Iraqi oilfields and discussed how they could be parceled out among the many claimants in the US and European oil industries.
...For all of Kerry’s current posturing as a critic of “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time,†the Democratic Party has served as an accomplice and partner in the rape of Iraq, not an opponent. The Democratic administration of Bill Clinton helped starve the Iraqi people for eight years, bombing and killing, and perpetuating the myths that provided the basis for Bush’s war propaganda.
...The Democrats are caught in irreconcilable contradictions when they attempt to posture as critics of the war. They criticize the decision to invade, but pledge to continue the war. They declare the war a “mistake,†but vow to carry it through to victory.
...[T]he invasion of Iraq was not a sudden aberration on the part of George W. Bush. It arose out of a policy pursued for over a decade, under three administrations, both Republican and Democratic. Such as decision is not a “mistake,†as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry maintains. It is a monstrous crime: the criminal pursuit of a calculated policy, for which the entire US ruling elite must be held accountable.
World Socialist Website articleThe Bush administration chose to go to war with Iraq because it knew that the country was bled white, devastated by the sanctions, incapable of serious military resistance, and, consequently, ripe for the taking. It was an act of plunder, motivated by the desire to lay hold of Iraq’s vast oil resources and position American troops at the center of the Middle East, a strategic position which would give US imperialism a decisive advantage over all its rivals, both European and Asian.
This is a war crime in the fullest sense of the word. Under the Nuremberg precedent, the planning and preparation of aggressive war is a crime against humanity. The record of such planning and preparation by those who today wield power is ample. In the months before September 11, 2001, for example, Cheney’s closed-door energy task force, which included top US energy executives, pored over maps of Iraqi oilfields and discussed how they could be parceled out among the many claimants in the US and European oil industries.
...For all of Kerry’s current posturing as a critic of “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time,†the Democratic Party has served as an accomplice and partner in the rape of Iraq, not an opponent. The Democratic administration of Bill Clinton helped starve the Iraqi people for eight years, bombing and killing, and perpetuating the myths that provided the basis for Bush’s war propaganda.
...The Democrats are caught in irreconcilable contradictions when they attempt to posture as critics of the war. They criticize the decision to invade, but pledge to continue the war. They declare the war a “mistake,†but vow to carry it through to victory.
...[T]he invasion of Iraq was not a sudden aberration on the part of George W. Bush. It arose out of a policy pursued for over a decade, under three administrations, both Republican and Democratic. Such as decision is not a “mistake,†as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry maintains. It is a monstrous crime: the criminal pursuit of a calculated policy, for which the entire US ruling elite must be held accountable.
The World Socialist Website has some good articles, including that one, and this one written in March of 2003, which accurately describes the likely outcome of the invasion of Iraq, details the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein through U.S. backing, and discusses the "crisis of capitalism" in this country, concluding:
Whatever the outcome of the initial stages of the conflict that has begun, American imperialism has a rendezvous with disaster. It cannot conquer the world. It cannot reimpose colonial shackles upon the masses of the Middle East. It will not find through the medium of war a viable solution to its internal maladies. Rather, the unforeseen difficulties and mounting resistance engendered by war will intensify all of the internal contradictions of American society.
Notwithstanding the opinion polls, which are no more believable than any other product of the mass media, there already exists substantial and growing opposition to the war. The demonstrations held on the eve of war were larger than anything held even at the height of the antiwar movement during the Vietnam era. Above all, the demonstrations within the United States unfolded as part of a broad international movement against war. This expressed the emergence of an entirely new quality in social consciousness: the growing awareness that the great social problems of our epoch require international rather than merely national solutions.
Notwithstanding the opinion polls, which are no more believable than any other product of the mass media, there already exists substantial and growing opposition to the war. The demonstrations held on the eve of war were larger than anything held even at the height of the antiwar movement during the Vietnam era. Above all, the demonstrations within the United States unfolded as part of a broad international movement against war. This expressed the emergence of an entirely new quality in social consciousness: the growing awareness that the great social problems of our epoch require international rather than merely national solutions.
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