Hands off Iraq! Withdraw all US forces from the Middle East now!

[IndianaGreen]

The following statement is being distributed in Washington DC, San Francisco and other cities on October 25 at protests organized against the US war and occupation in Iraq. It has also been posted in PDF format, and we urge our readers and supporters to download and distribute it in their areas.

Hands off Iraq! Withdraw all US forces from the Middle East now! Build an antiwar movement based on the international working class!
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party
24 October 2003

As tens of thousands prepare to march October 25 in Washington DC and other cities to demonstrate their opposition to the Bush administration’s policies of war and conquest in Iraq, the Socialist Equality Party calls for the building of an international antiwar movement based on the working class.

Six months after Bush declared the end of major combat operations, it is time to draw a balance sheet on the various strategies that have been advanced for the antiwar movement. Those who headed the mass demonstrations in the run-up to the war advocated a strategy of protest and pressure on the institutions, governments and political parties of the ruling class. What have been the results?

The war was launched in defiance of the largest international protest demonstrations in history. These protests clearly expressed the views of the majority of the world’s population. But the US government pushed ahead with military action, responding to the only constituency that actively lobbied for war—corporate America, which dominates the two political parties and the media.

This experience demonstrates that the fight against war requires not a strategy based on illusions that the ruling elite can be persuaded to abandon its policies of militarism and war, but rather a political struggle for power against the governments responsible for aggression.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/oct2003/iraq-o24.shtml