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WSWS : News & Analysis : Australia & South Pacific : New Zealand

ICFI/WSWS public meeting in New Zealand

The Iraq War: imperialism and the international strategy for socialism

7 July 2004

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This leaflet is available as a PDF leaflet to download and distribute

The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site will be holding a public meeting in Wellington, New Zealand to discuss the international socialist strategy needed to oppose imperialism and war. This will be the first meeting sponsored by the WSWS in New Zealand, and we warmly invite all WSWS readers and supporters to attend.

The US-led war against Iraq—an illegal war of colonial oppression and plunder—marks a turning point in world history. All the lies used to justify it have been exposed. The Bush administration’s invasion had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, or with liberating the Iraqi people. It was aimed at securing, for America’s corporate elite, access to Iraq’s oil and establishing US hegemony over the entire Middle East.

International political relations are as volatile today as they were prior to 1914 and the outbreak of World War I. Behind the renewed drive to war lies the fundamental conflict between the development of world economy and the historically outmoded nation state system. This is also at the heart of the offensive being conducted by governments in every country against decent jobs, living standards and democratic rights. The interests and aspirations of the majority of the world’s population are being subordinated to the drive for profit by a tiny fraction of society.

Around the globe, millions of people are looking for a way forward against this state of affairs. In early 2003, tens of thousands of New Zealanders joined the largest international demonstrations in history to protest the invasion of Iraq. Recent elections in Spain, Europe, South Korea, India and Canada have highlighted a growing alienation from all official politics. In the US itself, the Bush administration heads into the 2004 elections divided and discredited. Yet tens of thousands of foreign troops remain in Iraq, while the spoils of war are being divided up among the administration’s favoured corporate backers. The Democratic Party promises to pursue the same agenda even more vigorously.

Despite the oft-repeated claims that Prime Minister Helen Clark successfully manoeuvred to keep New Zealand out of the war, the record shows that her government has been deeply implicated in Washington’s crimes. The Labour government currently has a contingent of elite SAS troops reinforcing US military activities in Afghanistan, while army engineers and a navy frigate are playing a key role in enforcing the continuing occupation of Iraq. Moreover, New Zealand is participating, with Australia, in the revival of neo-colonial domination over the Solomon Islands and other Pacific Island states.

The World Socialist Web Site is committed to establishing the political and programmatic foundations for a genuinely global mass movement against imperialism. First and foremost is the fight for the international unity of the working class, in opposition to all forms of nationalism, whether based on religious, ethnic or national identity.

The Wellington public meeting will provide a forum for the discussion and clarification of these vital issues.

Speaker: Nick Beams, Socialist Equality Party (Australia) national secretary and member of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS

Wellington
Sunday August 1
Commencing 2:00 p.m.
City Gallery Cinema, Civic Square
Tickets: $3 & $2 for students, pensioners and unemployed
For further information E-mail: sep-nz@sep.org.au