Starting Positions Please

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Saturday September 13, 2003 17:26 by iosaf / ipsiphi / O as if - espai alliberat contra la Guerra barcelona

Stopping the Occupations of Iraq and Palestine

Try Once,
Fail Once,
Try Again,
Fail Better.
:- Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) Irish writer, dramatist, cricketeer, resistance activist and Nobel laureate.

z150 colour frame asks: is it relevant whether or not Oswald or the 20th century Military Industrial Complex killed JFK?

February 15th an estimated 12 million people took to the streets of cities globally to protest against the then imminent war on Iraq.

That they did so proved a level of solidarity accross the international movement many have tried and failed to give a name.

September 27th 2003 we shall in a ripple across the planet ·our world· go back to those who would be ·our masters· with the same words, hopes, slogans, solidarity, anger, prayers, facts and figures, truths, and more besides.

We in "Espai alliberat contra la Guerra" have always maintained that the ·_root cause_· of
transnational conflict is "the quotidien war of poverty, exclusion, hunger, prejudice, disinformation, criminalisation, exploitation and insecurity".

http://belgium.indymedia.org/news/2003/02/49179.php

There are many important differences between this year's campaign [2003-2004] and that of last year [2002-2003]. And for our myriad different tactics and approaches to ·our common task· it is timely to consider some of the main differences.
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Saddam Hussein is no longer to be seen as relevant, his card has been played.
Muhamed Baqir Al Hakim the leader of Iraqi exiled muslims who crossed the Iranian frontier with 50,000 troops is now dead. his card is played.
Osama is now no more terrible than a t-shirt, if he is terrible then he surely has proven himself capable of undermining the USA, and it is time to parley with him, if not he is an agent of the USA and it is time to expose him. his card has been as overplayed as the joker.

Ireland has through the heroic and costly efforts of Ed Horgan made clear it's attitude to Neutrality. It is worthy of comment that increased activism of our movement was a direct cause of the cancellation of the WEF meeting provisioned for this Autumn in Dublin. We do not see any notable difference in the ·_root causes_· of transnational conflict in the Irish States.

Other characters are facing domestic problems of serious magnitude focussing on their integrity and honesty. Mr Blair's problems will continue.
Mr Bush (2) is now facing his homerun to re-election (or first time election) to the White House. He is thus facing a field of candidates
who vary in their attitude to the occupations of Iraq and Palestine.

Aznar has for various domestic reasons assigned his succesor and left the global stage. In his wake the Left of Spain and those countries influenced by the Spanish left have consolidated their representation in all "deomcratic" assemblies under now ·_stated_· pacifist policies. The alternative and pacifist collectives for the first time in over seventy years engaged with the parties of social democracy to varying levels of success.
We have not seen any notable change in the ·_root causes_· of conflict.

The cost of the War on Iraq has been "too high" for the US to bear. They can not nor could not as I always maintained afford to ·prosecute thier war". The one bomb by Al Qaeda at the UN building @ an estimated cost of 15,000$ has ensured that the UN, IMF and World Bank are not operating in occupied Iraq.

If you're interested the previsioned cost of the US war on Iraq was (of April NY Times)
Military Deployment = $79 billion
Military Occupation = $105 billion (First 5 years only.)
Humanitarian Aid = $10 billion
Governance = $12 billion
Reconsrtuction/Recovery = $105 billion
Debt/Claims/Reparation = $361 billion
Aid To Allies = $10 billion (Does not include quid pro quo deals)
TOTAL: $682 billion
The Bush budget assumes a deficit of $5.4 trillion by the end of ten years (2004), but the addition of a Bush Iraq war deficit of .7 trillion will push it up to $6.1 trillionThe Bush deficit of $304 billion, the largest in history as well as the most precipitous, (see above) is pre-budget. With the new Bush budget in place,
our deficit is $5.4 trillion over ten years. (Bush is back-loading the deficit so the entire economic penality of what he is doing will not
be readily apparent until after he is out of office.)
In short the shiboleeth of US capitalism the "defecit" is as you know how the voter is
led in US elections. The cookie jar of World Oil has been found to be to tightly closed to be worth having.

In the USA homeland, there has been no notable change in the ·_root causes_· of conflict.

here is a list of all US service men who have died in Iraq:
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/53050/index.php


The absence of the IMF, World Bank and UN institutions from Iraq in the wake of the Al Qaeda attributed bombing of the UN offices means that there are no legal ways of resolving the cost incurred by the US/K. The above estimates
were passed in June 2003. Accordingly US soldiers no longer recieve "danger pay". Washington doesn't have enough money to "prosecute it's war".

The Superpower is thus no longer to be considered a Superpower.

Neither is it to be considered as the laughable and conceitful "indispensible nation".

The USA has had extensive domestic difficulty best perhaps summed up in the loss of power to 30 million citizens this summer.
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Deaths by martyrdom have increased in the last year. There is no sign that they shall stop.
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Iraq and Palestine are now completely in the media loop. Indymedia and other networks are guaranteeing the hope that the peoples of Iraq and Palestine may help us help them to combat the root causes of conflict.
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the Quotidien War of insecurity, hatred, criminalisation, immoral borders, unemployment, prejudice, ignorance, hunger.

They have long asked for us to help them.
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in 2002-2003 we issued as a global movement "without name" facts. Unarguable facts, many of us found it difficult, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically to deal with the blanket refusal to engage with those facts.
Every argument against the war was vindicated.
This year we had better concentrate less on Western Civilisation's politics and energy concerns and _more_ on the lives of our global community.

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This year our campaign is perhaps for Life
rather than against War. War whose machinery is fueled and directed by the now non-functional military industrial complex which with the assasination of John F. Kennedy ushered in the last thirty years of the 20th century.