Washington, DC – On Saturday, March 18, several thousand people gathered at Lafayette Plaza in front of the White House to protest ongoing U.S. wars and interventions. The rally was organized and attended by the Answer Coalition, United National Antiwar Coalition, Codepink, Veterans for Peace, Black Alliance for Peace, Students for a Democratic Society, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Workers World Party, and Socialist Unity Party, amongst many other organizations. First the crowd heard speeches from various organizers of the rally.

Christly Carpio of Students for a Democratic Society gave a speech condemning U.S. intelligence agencies attempts to recruit Arab and Chinese students at the University of Illinois Chicago, which was successfully protested by the local student movement there. She went on to detail the ongoing student struggle in Florida to keep multicultural program and Black history classes against efforts by Governor Ron DeSantis to suppress it. Carpio also discussed the repression doled out by the local governments, including the recent arrest of four student activists in Tampa, including Carpio herself.

“We've been having protests against Governor Ron DeSantis's evil war on multicultural programs, Black history in schools, our attempts to increase Black enrollment in schools, and two Mondays ago myself and my fellow students were beaten, shoved and arrested by the University of South Florida police for calling on the university president to meet with us for this demand,” stated Carpio.

Carpio ended her speech tying the struggle of the student movement to the anti-war movement. “Despite the brutality we have faced, we say no to NATO, no to this U.S. war, and Students for a Democratic Society will be part of this fight every step of the way.”

After the first set of speeches at Lafayette Plaza, protesters marched to New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, going through downtown DC past the Washington Post building. In the church, Joe Lombardo of the United National Antiwar Coalition emceed speeches from representatives of various liberation and anti-war movements across the world including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Syria, China, Palestine, Libya, Guam and many other nations.

Wyatt Miller of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization spoke, tying the struggle against U.S. imperialism internationally to the struggle domestically: “There are oppressed nations within U.S. borders, and the enemy they face in their struggles for liberation is the same enemy faced by nations like Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba, the Philippines, Syria and so on, because that enemy is U.S. imperialism.”

“I’m from Minneapolis. In 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd we saw just a glimpse of the power of the people when we stand up against our common enemies. For a few miraculous days, the rulers of the city, the police, the National Guard, were completely powerless. That tinderbox of ungovernable, multi-national rage at the system is still burning all over this country and the anti-war movement needs to join with it, and help it strengthen and grow, in order to actually, finally bring down U.S. imperialism,” continued Miller.

Miller called for a United Front against imperialism to be built in the United States and ended his speech with a call to free Alex Saab, a Venezuelan diplomat who has been imprisoned by the United States in Miami ever since being kidnapped by the U.S. government.

#WashingtonDC #AntiwarMovement #IraqWar

The events come in the context of the Iraqi parliament passing a resolution telling the United States to remove its forces from the country, and the country’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi requesting the U.S. to start talks on withdrawing military forces. The Trump administration says it will not leave Iraq.

In the past, the Balad Air Base housed a U.S. facility for holding and torturing Iraqi prisoners.

In related developments, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units have vowed to end the presence of U.S. troops.

#WashingtonDC #AntiwarMovement #Iraq #Iran #US #MiddleEast #PeoplesStruggles #IraqWar #DonaldTrump

Minneapolis, MN – Around 200 protesters took to the streets here, March 21, to mark the 12th anniversary of the start of the U.S. war on Iraq. The protest called for an end to U.S. military intervention in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere and coincided with national anti-war actions, including an anti-war protest in Washington, DC at the White House on the same day.

The protest began at the busy intersection of Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis with protesters holding signs saying “Stop bombing Iraq and Syria,” “No new wars for the 1%,” and “Hands off Ukraine, Venezuela and everywhere.” After a short rally they marched on Lake Street, one of the busiest streets in Minneapolis, to Walker Church.

The U.S. is very much at war in Iraq again, and the war has extended to Syria. March 2015 marks 12 years since the start of the U.S. war in Iraq. Now, the U.S. is again at war in Iraq and the war is expanding into Syria. The Obama administration has requested a new Authorization for Use of Military Force from Congress, which will give a legal cover to more years of endless war. Reuters news service reported March 18 that a Pentagon report states that as of March 12, the U.S. military has flown 2320 air strikes since Aug. 8 at a cost of $1.83 billion, hitting thousands of targets. The new military intervention costs an average of about $8.5 million daily according to Reuters.

Loretta Van Pelt, a leader in the Welfare Rights Committee, spoke out at the opening rally. She explained, “The resources that are used to fight whoever and whatever could best be used to help low income people, more affordable housing, a living wage, the list goes on. They wonder why 50% of public school kids live in poverty, wonder why people still have a hard time finding a job even though the economy supposedly improved and the unemployment rate is going down. War is obviously not the answer, which is why we are here today! We need to keep rallying for peace, stop all wars and stop U.S. aggression!”

Sabry Wazwaz, a Palestinian American activist with the Anti-War Committee, spoke at Walker Church, “The U.S. government spends trillions of dollars on wars, invading other countries leaving over a million deaths of innocent civilians just for their own personal interests. Instead it should fix inner cities across the U.S. Instead of closing so many schools down in inner cities they should invest money into them and fix them. The U.S. should help its own citizens as millions of homeless sleep under bridges including thousands of vets themselves, build more care centers to help the mentally ill, and fix up the city of Detroit instead of sending billions to Israel.”

Speakers also condemned U.S. intervention in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ukraine and Venezuela.

Joe Callahan, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Cuba Committee and a long time Latin America solidarity activist, addressed the crowd at the opening rally about the Obama’s recent actions against Venezuela, “On the other hand, here in the hemisphere, the U.S. has stepped up hostility toward Venezuela, they have declared sanctions against Venezuela and ominously proclaimed that Venezuela represents ‘an extraordinary threat to U.S. national security.’ Venezuelan leaders have sounded the alarm about U.S. organized coup plots, arresting the mayor of Caracas and expelling some U.S. embassy personnel. Food distributors are holding back food, and the right wing blames shortages on the government. It’s a very tense and dangerous situation. We need to stand together with Venezuela against U.S. intervention. Hands off Venezuela!”

The protest was organized by the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition. It was endorsed by AFSCME Local 3800, Alliant Action, Anti-War Committee, Committee for Palestinian Rights, Community of St. Martin, Every Church a Peace Church, Faith Mennonite Church, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Grandmothers for Peace, Marxist Student Federation, Mayday Books, Military Families Speak Out (MN chapter), Minneapolis Green Party, Peace and Justice Committee of Sacred Heart Catholic Church (St. Paul), St. Frances Cabrini Justice and Peace Committee, Socialist Action, Students for a Democratic Society (UMN), St. Joan of Arc/WAMM Peacemakers, St. Paul Eastside Neighbors for Peace, Twin Cities Peace Campaign, Veterans for Peace, Welfare Rights Committee, Women Against Military Madness, and Workers International League.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #Iraq #Venezuela #IraqWar

When asked why the U.S. is not invading Syria or Iran, Mike Fox of the Progressive Democrats stated, “because of everyone in this room!” Fox was asserting that anti-war organizers in Florida and across the country are effective at creating public opinion opposed to U.S. air strikes and military intervention. Other speakers pointed to the fact that Syria and Iran currently stand against U.S. imperialism and have built up defenses against U.S. intervention and war.

Brian Moore of NCCPJ said that because “capitalism is crumbling and failing” the U.S. does not have the resources to carry out military action against these countries. A question was also posed about what the difference may have been had McCain (in 2008) or Romney (in 2012) been elected. Jesse Nevel of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement argued that both Democrats and Republicans “represent contending sectors of the ruling class” that have “different strategies, but the same imperialist goals” when it comes to U.S. foreign policy.

The panelists were united in their belief that U.S. intervention of any kind would only bring more death and destruction to the people of Iraq. They praised the Iraqi people for resisting U.S. domination and exploitation of their country for over a decade. Panelists spoke to the U.S. corporate media's narrative that the tensions in Iraq are due to longstanding sectarian divisions. Some spoke on how sectarian warfare is promoted by the U.S. and NATO to divide regions amongst imperialist countries to create the conditions of domination in the ensuing chaos.

Speakers noted that the people of Iraq and other countries subject to U.S. imperialism are bravely resisting the conditions and colonial borders imposed upon them by the West. The panelists and audience plan to organize against any threats of U.S. war and take to the streets in protest.  Gage Lacharite of Tampa Bay-Students for a Democratic Society said, “The protest will be yet another showing of anti-war and anti imperialist sentiment against MacDill AFB, the home of Special Ops in America.”

Organizers in the St. Pete/Tampa area are planning a demonstration for June 27 at 4pm on the corner of Gandy and Dale Mabry Boulevard, near the entrance to MacDill Air Force Base, home of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) where plans for U.S. warfare are drawn up.

#StPetersburgFL #AntiwarMovement #Iraq #IraqWar

Chicago, IL – 150 people protested President Obama’s threat of a new war on Iraq. Called by the ANSWER Coalition, and involving a number of other groups, including the Anti-War Committee-Chicago, the June 20 protest showed that there is a lot of opposition to U.S. plans.

The current U.S. military plan is to send in 300 military advisors, who are mainly special forces. On June 18, Obama stated, “And going forward, we will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it.” Groups like the Anti-War Committee (AWC) – Chicago, think that when Obama says “targeted and precise military action,” he means drone strikes.

At Chicago’s protest, Kait McIntyre of AWC spoke. She said, “When I first got involved in the anti-war movement in 2007, there were many signs that said troops out now. It is now our duty to expand that demand. We must demand no U.S. drones, no U.S. military advisors, no special forces, no new U.S. war with Iraq! Hands off Iraq!”

As McIntyre further stated, “It is horrific and despicable that the U.S. government has apparently forgotten the death and devastation it left behind in Iraq.” Speaking about the tasks of the anti-war movement, she concluded, “We must remember this and remember what we as a movement are capable of. Just two years ago, Chicago had over 15,000 in the streets to protest NATO. We are a force to be reckoned with.”

#ChicagoIL #AntiwarMovement #Iraq #IraqWar #AntiWarCommitteeChicago

Minneapolis, MN – Speaking out against a new U.S. war in Iraq was the task of over 50 people who joined an anti-war protest here, June 21, along the sidewalks at Hiawatha Avenue and Lake Street, one of the most visible locations in the city on a Saturday afternoon.

The protest comes after the June 19 announcement by President Obama that 300 U.S. special forces troops will be sent to Iraq as ‘advisers.’ Obama also stated that targets are being sought for bombing or drone strikes.

Participants held signs and banners against a new war.

The Minnesota Peace Action Coalition (MPAC) initiated the call for the Saturday, June 21 event.

During the weekend, protests were held in cities around the U.S. – Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere – to speak out against new military intervention in Iraq.

MPAC issued a statement that says in part, “As of now the Obama administration and the Pentagon have launched a new round of military intervention in Iraq. This will not end well for the people of Iraq or the people of the U.S.”

“It was the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq that destroyed the country and brought about the current crisis. There is nothing the Pentagon can do with more air strikes and destruction to undo that or to bring about peace. The people of Iraq must determine their own future,” the MPAC statement continues.

“No one knows how this will end, but when people hear ‘military advisers’ are being sent, one should remember how the Vietnam war started, with small numbers of advisers,” the MPAC statement concludes.

Speaking at the protest, Jess Sundin of the Anti-War Committee said, “When the president talks about bombing or sending advisors or any other kind of military aid, we know that will only bring more destruction to Iraq. The people of Iraq don't benefit from air strikes any more than we do here, and that's why we come out to the streets again and again, any time there are threats of war against our sisters and brothers in Iraq.”

The June 21 protest was the second event in the Twin Cities to speak out on the new war crisis. On June 18 over 80 people joined a weekly peace vigil sponsored by Women Against Military Madness and Twin Cities Peace Campaign. The groups urged to people to join the weekly peace vigil on an emergency basis due to the new war crisis.

The June 21 protest was endorsed by AFSCME Local 3800, Anti-War Committee, Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Mayday Books, Minnesota Cuba Committee, St. Joan of Arc WAMM/Peacemakers, Socialist Action, Southside Pride newspaper, Students for a Democratic Society UMN, Twin Cities Peace Campaign, Veterans for Peace, Women Against Military Madness, Workers International League and others.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #Iraq #AntiWarCommittee #IraqWar #MinnesotaPeaceActionCoalition

The vigil, organized under the call, “No New U.S. war in Iraq!” will be held June 18 from 5:00 to 6:00 pm on the Lake Street/Marshall Avenue bridge over the Mississippi River.

Signs and banners protesting a new war are being prepared to use at the vigil, which will be seen by thousands of people during rush hour traffic. The End War Committee of Women Against Military Madness and the Twin Cities Peace Campaign sponsor the weekly peace vigil.

The Minnesota Peace Action Coalition (MPAC), an umbrella group of anti-war and peace groups, has endorsed the call for people to join others at the June 18 vigil. The Anti-War Committee is urging people to attend.

MPAC issued a statement that says in part, “It has become increasingly likely that the U.S. government will launch a new military intervention in Iraq. It is urgent that anti-war forces mobilize to tell the Obama administration that the people of this country oppose a new war in Iraq.”

The MPAC statement continues, “It was the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq that destroyed the country and brought about the current crisis. There is nothing the Pentagon can do with more air strikes and destruction to undo that or to bring about peace now. The people of Iraq must determine their own future.”

Area organizers plan additional activities against a new U.S. war in Iraq in the days ahead and are committed to organizing emergency protests if the U.S. starts bombing Iraq.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #Iraq #AntiWarCommittee #IraqWar #MinnesotaPeaceActionCoalition

The corporate media in the U.S. play a powerful role in preparation for imperialist war. They play an even more insidious role in rewriting the history of U.S. wars and obstructing the purpose of U.S. wars.

They are totally intertwined with U.S. military, oil and banking corporations. In every war, this enormously powerful institution known as the ‘fourth estate’ attempts, as the public relations arm of corporate dominance, to justify imperialist plunder and overwhelm all dissent.

The corporate media’s reminiscences and evaluations this week of the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, which began March 19, 2003, are a stark reminder of their criminal complicity in the war.

In the many articles there is barely any mention of the hundreds of news stories that totally saturated the media for months leading to the Pentagon onslaught. The news coverage in 2003 was wholly unsubstantiated, with wild fabrications of Iraqi secret ”weapons of mass destruction,” ominous nuclear threats, germ warfare programs, purchases of yellow cake uranium, nerve gas labs and the racist demonization of Saddam Hussein as the greatest threat to humanity. All of this is now glossed over and forgotten.

No weapons were ever found in Iraq, but no U.S. official was ever charged with fraud. Heroes such as Private B. Manning, however, face life in prison for releasing documents exposing the extent of some these premeditated crimes.

Today, in the popular histories, the barest mention is made of the real reason for the war: the determination to impose regime change on Iraq in order to secure U.S. corporate control and domination of the vast oil and gas resources of the region. Iraq was to be an example to every country attempting independent development that the only choice was complete submission or total destruction.

Now it is no longer even a political debate that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq were a howling disaster and major imperialist blunder for U.S. strategic interests. Despite every determination to occupy Iraq with 14 permanent military bases, the U.S. army of occupation was forced to withdraw in the face of fierce Iraqi national resistance.

Bush stood on the deck of the U.S. aircraft carrier Lincoln on May Day 2003, with a “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him, to declare the war over. But what the U.S., puffed up by its imperialist arrogance, did not foresee was that the resistance had just begun.

U.S. strategists, so full of conceit about their powerful weapons, ignored the message displayed on signs, billboards and headlines of every Iraqi newspaper. It was even the headline of an English-language newspaper there, when this reporter was in Iraq with a solidarity delegation just a few weeks before the U.S. “shock and awe” onslaught.

The oft-repeated slogan was: “What the jungles of Vietnam were to their resistance, the cities of Iraq will be for us.”

The Iraqi government opened the warehouses and distributed six months of food rations to the population in advance of the war. Each package bore the sign: “Remember to feed a resistance fighter.” Small arms, explosives and simple instructions for making improvised explosive devices were publicly distributed.

Ultimately U.S. corporate power was defeated in Iraq due to its inability to be a force for human progress on any level. It was incapable of reconstruction.

The overpowering force of U.S. weaponry was able to destroy the proudest accomplishments of past decades of Iraqi sovereignty and inflame old sectarian wounds. But it was unable to defeat the Iraqi resistance or even gain a vote on a status of forces agreement in an Iraqi Parliament that the U.S. planners created.

U.S. media non-coverage

In covering the 10th anniversary, the same media that sold the war 24/7 recount the criminal decision to invade and occupy Iraq as just mistaken intelligence or wrong information. At the same time that they wring their hands over lost opportunities and lack of foresight, they give a passing salute to the 4,448 U.S. soldiers who died and the 32,221 wounded. At least 3,400 U.S. contractors died as well, a number barely mentioned or underreported.

More than 1.1 million U.S. soldiers served in Iraq. The National Council on Disabilities says up to 40 percent of veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was the most widely and closely reported war in military history. Yet the enormity of the crime committed against the Iraqi people, the hundreds of thousands of silent deaths from lack of medical infrastructure, the millions of refugees, the environmental catastrophe, the radioactive and chemical waste left behind were ignored in coverage then, and today are barely noted.

At the start of the war in March 2003, 775 reporters and photographers were registered and traveling as embedded journalists. The number grew to thousands. These reporters signed contracts with the military that limited what they were allowed to report on.

So it should come as no surprise that what is completely missing from coverage is any responsibility for the calculated destruction of Iraq, the massive corruption and systematic looting, or the conscious policy of inflaming sectarian hatred and violence as a tactic to demoralize the resistance.

Statistics cannot convey the human loss. One out of every four Iraqi children under 18 lost one or both parents. In 2007, there were 5 million Iraqi orphans, according to official government statistics. By 2008, only 50 percent of primary-school-age children were attending classes. Iraq was reduced from having the lowest rate of illiteracy in the region to having the highest. Women suffered the greatest losses in education, professions, childcare, nutrition and their own safety in the brutal occupation.

According to figures of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, there are now 2.7 million internally displaced Iraqis and 2.2 million refugees, mostly in neighboring states. More than one-fourth of Iraq’s population is dead, disabled or dislocated refugees due to the years of U.S. occupation. This is hardly liberation.

Missing in the many 10th anniversary evaluations is the essential historical context. The 2003 war was a continuation of the 1991 war to destroy Iraq as a sovereign nation in control of its own resources. There is barely a mention of the targeted destruction in 1991 of drinking water, sanitation, sewage, irrigation, communications and pharmaceutical industry facilities, as well as the civilian electric grid and basic food supply. Erased today is all mention of 13 years of U.S./U.N. starvation sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003, which caused the deaths, through hunger and disease, of more than 1 million Iraqis, more than half of them children.

Despite the horrendous toll, the failure of U.S./U.N.-imposed sanctions to create a total collapse in Iraq compelled U.S. corporate power to opt for a military invasion to impose regime change.

Second anniversary of wars in Libya, Syria

Also missing from evaluations of the U.S. war on Iraq is any mention that this is a week of two other war anniversaries.

March 19 is the second anniversary of the U.S./NATO war on Libya — the seven months of bombing that destroyed the modern, beautiful cities, schools, hospitals and cultural centers built with nationalized oil and gas of Libya. The NATO operation assassinated the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 and laid waste to the whole country. But it has not yet secured a stable source of U.S. profits.

March 15 is the second anniversary of the continuing U.S./NATO effort to destabilize and utterly destroy modern, secular Syria.

Despite U.S./NATO backing and funding from the corrupt feudal monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, diplomatic support, the arming of death squads and mercenaries, and the setting up of safe havens and bases in Turkey, the Syrian government has mobilized the population and resisted another U.S.-orchestrated regime change. The conflict is at a stalemate. The death toll has passed 70,000.

The Salvador option: mass terror

The clearest expose that the years of sectarian violence in Iraq following the U.S. invasion, death squad assassinations, mass terror campaigns and the harrowing use of torture by trained commando units were deliberate acts sanctioned and developed at the highest level of U.S. political and military command was published the week of March 18 in the London Guardian, with an accompanying BBC documentary film. The expose was based on 18 months of research.

The expose names Col. James Steele, a retired Special Forces veteran, who was sent to Iraq by then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to organize paramilitaries to crush the Iraqi insurgency. Another special adviser, retired Col. James Coffman, worked alongside Steele and reported directly to General Petraeus.

This U.S. policy of counterinsurgency was called the “Salvador option” — a terrorist model of mass killings by U.S.-sponsored death squads. It was first applied in El Salvador in the 1980s’ heyday of resistance against a military dictatorship, resulting in an estimated 75,000 deaths. One million out of a population of 6 million became refugees.

The Salvador option is the central tenet of General David Petraeus’ often-praised counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Guardian researchers analyzed a number of documents from Wikileaks and assembled a huge number of reports of torture carried out by militias trained and supported by the U.S. under this program. The BBC and The Guardian report that their requests for comment to key members of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, which could investigate the allegations, were declined or ignored.

But in Samarra, an Iraqi city where Iraqis were tortured in a library and that the BBC documentary focuses on, residents held mass demonstrations against the government and planned to set up big screens in the central square to show the whole film.

‘Shock and awe’ = terror

From the very beginning of war preparation, U.S. plans were calculated to use the most extreme forms of terror on the Iraqi people to force submission to U.S. domination. “Shock and awe” is terrorism by another name.

“Shock and awe” is technically known as rapid dominance. By its very definition, it’s a military doctrine that uses overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze and destroy the will to fight. Written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996, the doctrine is a product of the U.S. National Defense University, developed to exploit the “superior technology, precision engagement, and information dominance” of the United States.

This well-known military strategy requires the capability to disrupt “means of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and other aspects of infrastructure.” According to these criminal military strategists, the aim is to achieve a level of national shock akin to the effect of dropping nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

War profiteers

The looting and pillage of Iraq on a grand scale were also planned from the very beginning. It was hardly an accident, a mistaken policy or the fog of war.

The official who had total authority in Iraq immediately following “shock and awe” destruction, the chief of the occupation authority in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, enacted 100 orders which turned Iraq overnight into a giant U.S.-dominated capitalist free market. The 100 orders guaranteed 100 percent foreign investor ownership of Iraqi assets, the right to expropriate all profits, unrestricted imports, and long-term 30- to 40-year deals and leases. In the official turnover to Iraqi sovereignty, these colonial orders were to stay in place.

Billions were stolen outright from Iraq. According to Dirk Adriaensens of the BRussells Tribunal, U.S. administrators, as the occupation “authority,” seized all Iraqi assets and funds all over the world — totaling U.S. $13 billion. They confiscated all Iraqi funds in the U.S. (U.S. $3 billion). They enforced transfers of funds from the Iraqi UBS account (Swiss bank) to the U.S. forces. They demanded and received from the U.N. the accumulated oil-for-food program funds up to March 2003 (about U.S. $21 billion).

In the first weeks of the occupation, U.S. troops got hold of about U.S. $6 billion as well as U.S. $4 billion from the Central Bank and other Iraqi banks. They collected this money in special government buildings in Baghdad.

Where did all these funds go? Instead of setting up an account in the Iraqi Central Bank for depositing these funds, as well as the oil export funds, the occupation authorities set up the “Development Fund for Iraq” account in the American Central Bank, New York Branch, where all financial operations are carried out in top secrecy. Around $40 billion is “missing” from a post-Gulf War fund.

According to the BBC, in June 10, 2008, another $23 billion in Western aid funds to Iraq were lost, stolen or “not properly accounted for.” Tales abounded of millions of dollars in $100 bills that went missing from skids at airports and of deliveries of pizza boxes and duffle bags full of cash.

According to BusinessPundit.com’s list of the 25 most vicious war profiteers, these stolen funds were just the beginning of the theft. Major U.S. corporations reported record profits. In the years 2003 to 2006, profits and earnings doubled for Exxon/Mobil Corp. and ChevronTexaco.

Halliburton’s KBR, Inc. division, which was directly connected to Vice President Cheney, bilked government agencies to the tune of $17.2 billion in Iraq war-related revenue from 2003 to 2006 alone.

The cost of war

Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz calculated the cost of the Iraq war, including the many hidden costs, in his 2008 book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War.” He concluded: “There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is no such thing as a free war. The Iraq adventure has seriously weakened the U.S. economy, whose woes now go far beyond loose mortgage lending. You can’t spend $3 trillion — yes, $3 trillion — on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home.”

Stiglitz lists what even one of these trillions could have paid for: 8 million housing units, or 15 million public school teachers, or health care for 530 million children for a year, or scholarships to universities for 43 million students. Three trillion could have fixed America’s so-called Social Security problem for half a century.

According to a Christian Science Monitor report, when ongoing medical treatment, replacement vehicles and other costs are included, the total cost of the Iraq war is projected to cost $4 trillion. (Oct. 25, 2012)

Peoples resistance & the anti-war movement

The corporate media play another important role in rewriting history. Their aim is always to do everything possible to marginalize and disparage the awareness of millions of people in their own power.

While the “shock and awe” attack of March 19, 2003, is still described today, it is rare in the major media to see any reference to the truly massive demonstrations of opposition to the impending war that drew millions of people into the streets. it is projected that before the war, more than 36 million people in more than 3,000 demonstrations mobilized internationally to oppose it — in the two coldest winter months. This was unprecedented.

In Iraq, despite the overwhelming force of “shock and awe,” the planned use of sectarian war and mass use of death squads — despite the destruction of every accomplishment built by past generations, along with the destruction of schools and the confiscation of resources — the U.S. war failed on every count. Despite horrendous conditions, the Iraqi resistance drove the occupation out of Iraq. This is an accomplishment of great significance to people all around the world.

Source: http://www.workers.org/2013/03/19/iraq-10th-anniversary-of-u-s-crime-against-humanity/

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #Iraq #mediaLies #IraqWar #MiddleEast

On the heels of the attacks on 9/11, the U.S. launched its criminal war in Afghanistan in October with the stated purpose of hunting down Osama Bin Laden. They launched their bombing campaign in the face of Taliban leader Mullah Omar's expressed willingness to cooperate in capturing Bin Laden. Come October 2011, this war will have dragged on for a decade, costing nearly $500 billion and the lives of 1670 U.S. troops, with tens of thousands of Afghans killed and seriously injured.

The illegal war in Iraq was instigated by Bush's lies regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In the political climate following 9/11, the corporate media supported and parroted whatever the White House and Pentagon said. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq cost $800 billion, the lives of 1.4 million Iraqis, more than 4000 U.S. troops dead and more than 100,000 wounded. It is noteworthy that more than 300 times as many deaths occurred in these two wars than in the 9/11 attacks. Likewise, since 9/11, under the guise of the ‘war on terror,’ the U.S. has expanded wars and interventions in Colombia, the Philippines, Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere.

Most recently, the U.S./NATO attacked Libya, seeking to establish a firm foothold in North Africa. All of these wars and interventions are about nothing more than strengthening the power of U.S. imperialism and of lining the pockets of the U.S. ruling class with the spoils of war in the form of oil and other natural resources. For the people of these countries, it means war, occupation and repression, along with the complete violation of their national sovereignty.

All the while, the people of the world, from Afghanistan and Libya, to Colombia and the Philippines continue to fight for self-determination and national liberation. We in Freedom Road Socialist Organization, along with progressive people everywhere, support them with the knowledge that our struggles are linked. The U.S. ruling class, oppressor of nations all over the world, likewise stands on the backs of working and oppressed people here. While the economic depression creates havoc at home for working people, the rich and powerful act as war criminals overseas.

The U.S. government was quick to shift public opinion in its favor following the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush's “with us or against us” mentality left no room for sane discussion in the mainstream media. This fueled the fire for the notorious Patriot Acts that were quickly pushed through as part of the package deal of repression and war. As a result, an era of state terror against Arabs and Muslims began. Tens of thousands of Arabs and Muslims were subject to ‘special registration,’ put on no-fly lists, placed under surveillance and persecuted by the U.S.'s racist response to 9/11.

Not long after, it became clear that the web of domestic spying was being widened to include the progressive and anti-war communities generally. We understand this particularly well since the law enforcement officer “Karen Sullivan” infiltrated Freedom Road Socialist Organization, along with other groups we are active in, in the build up to the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota. This infiltration led to the FBI raids on the homes and offices of 11 activists on Sept. 24, 2010, subpoenaing them to testify in a grand jury investigation concerning alleged “material support for terrorism.” Today, a total of 24 activists are targets of the investigation, with the threat of indictments looming.

U.S. imperialism is in decline, and the rich and powerful are growing more desperate by the day. As we said in our 2010 Main Political Report, “The 'war on terror' launched by the Bush administration was a dramatic attempt by the rulers of the United States to counteract the long running decline of Wall Street’s empire, by using military means. It ended in a series of defeat and stalemates, causing the phrase ‘war on terror’ to be quietly dropped from the Pentagon’s lexicon. The result is that on every continent, the U.S. finds itself struggling to find the methods and forms to maintain its domination, in the context of a declining ability to do so.”

The tragedy of 9/11 happened as a direct consequence of U.S. imperialist policy around the world. As long as these policies, which are part and parcel to the capitalist system itself, are allowed to continue, we will see further tragedy. The U.S. government repression, resulting from the cynical manipulation of this tragedy, has come down on FRSO and our friends because we have steadfastly resisted the ongoing wars and repression, both here and around the world. Likewise people around the world are continuing to fight back against the forces of empire. Despite all of the obstacles that face us in the days, months and years to come, we will continue to resist with all our might until, through mass struggle, a new era of peace, justice and equality is won.

#UnitedStates #InJusticeSystem #Editorials #PeoplesStruggles #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #warOnTerror #911 #IraqWar #September11 #September24FBIRaids #AfghanistanWar #LibyaWar #politicalRepression

Salt Lake City, UT – Students, military veterans and anti-war activists rallied here March 19 for the National Day of Action Against War.

March 19 now marks two significant events: the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and day one of the U.S.-led bombing and intervention into Libya.

More than 50 people turned out to declare their opposition to ongoing U.S. wars. Local activists spoke out against the U.S. war and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially the violence perpetrated by the U.S. against women. Kristen Lambert said in her speech, “No more will the rape of women in occupied countries by U.S. military and government officials be ignored.”

Another speaker talked about the repression of the anti-war movement here at home. In September, 2010 the FBI raided seven homes in Chicago and Minneapolis and now 23 anti-war and international solidarity activists have been called before U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s Grand Jury in Chicago.

The rally was capped off by a speech given by Aaron Davis, a member of Veterans for Peace, who called for an end to Wall Street investors’ wars that are financed on the backs of working-class people.

This rally marks the return of the anti-war movement in Utah. Several groups plan on organizing future events in light of the U.S. attacks on Libya and in response to the ongoing atrocities committed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Pakistan. Brett Barrett, the head of the Revolutionary Student Union's anti-war committee said, “We are making plans for a campaign against military recruitment on campus to deter college students from enlisting in the U.S. empire’s wars. The Revolutionary Student Union will lead Utah's charge against these bloody wars!”

#SaltLakeCityUT #AntiwarMovement #Afghanistan #Iraq #IraqWar #VeteransForPeace #Utah #RevolutionaryStudentUnion #AfghanistanWar #Libya #