The first two weeks of the US-led war against Iraq have demonstrated its criminal and barbaric character. In defiance of the United Nations, international law and mass international and domestic opposition, US-led military forces have dropped thousands of bombs and missiles on Iraqi towns and cities, murdering hundreds and destroying basic infrastructure, including access to food, water and rudimentary health services. Innocent men, women and children have been bombed in their market places, killed at US-controlled roadblocks and in sieges of towns and cities across the country. This human catastrophe is the price being paid for the Bush administration’s determination to seize control of Iraq’s oil resources, as part of its broader geo-political ambitions in the Middle East and beyond.
The invasion of Iraq marks an historic turning point. It has shattered the structure of post World War II international relations and opened a new period of imperialist plunder, which will bring the US into direct military conflict with its rivals in Europe, threatening mankind with a third world war.
Millions of people have demonstrated against the war in an unprecedented series of global demonstrations. But these protests have been unable to prevent it. The struggle against war requires nothing less than a consciously elaborated political strategy, based on an understanding of the historical causes and driving forces behind imperialist war and directed against the socio-economic order that gives rise to it—the capitalist system.
The global opposition to war must be transformed into a politically conscious, international movement, based on the American and international working class, and grounded on the fight for world socialism.
The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party in Australia urge readers of the WSWS to attend our public meeting in Sydney to discuss these critical issues.
Monday April 14, 7:00pm
University of Technology, Sydney
5C
Room 01.31
15 Quay Street
Haymarket
$4/$2 concession
For more information contact the Socialist Equality Party:
Phone: 0297903511
Email: sep@sep.org.au
Mail: PO Box 367, Bankstown NSW 1885