Liberation News- Serving US soldier calling for the end to the occupation!

(Being a supporter of a form of New Age Communism which combines 
traditional uncorrupted barter, I cannot yet say if I fully support 
the political party and or supporters writing these articles. Though 
they are very valid as far as I can tell and make many good points. 
Caesar 999)

In this mailing:

1) Message from Tim Predmore, a serving US soldier in Iraq, calling 
for the end of an occupation based on lies.

2) What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq (first 
posted March 27, 2003) By Steve Argue


[Editor's Note: The following article is by Tim Predmore, he is a US 
soldier on active duty with the 101st Airborne Division, based near 
Mosul in northern Iraq. In it he calls for an end to the US 
occupation of Iraq.

There were many who claimed that the anti-war movement had failed as 
soon as the invasion of Iraq began.  They claimed that our mass 
demonstrations and vocal opposition would never work again in this 
era of modern warfare.  They lectured it was time for us all to find 
our way of influence by toning down our message and entering the 
mainstream.  

To this the Liberation News responded: There are three possible ways 
to end this imperialist war. (1) If the worker's refuse to build and 
ship the armaments.  (2) If the soldiers refuse to fight.  (3) If we 
carry out a socialist revolution.  And if we achieve either number 
one or number two we will not be far from achieving the third.

From this understanding comes the knowledge that our protests are not 
meant to try to influence the power structure, they are instead to 
work towards educating the populace (especially workers, soldiers, 
and young potential recruits or future draftees). 

The opposition to the war now seen amongst the troops in Iraq is 
partly our tactics and labor beginning to bear fruit.  The anti-war 
movement has not failed.

Many of these GI's will be returning home soon, with others being 
sent to experience the same hell for the profits of the capitalist 
class.  Many of the GI's coming home will be fighting mad after being 
lied to and facing a war of constant ambushes coupled with radiation 
as high as 1,700 times normal background radiation from US DU 
ammunition.  These GI's will not just be an important part of the 
leadership of the anti-war movement.  Many will also become an 
important component in the leadership of the coming American 
revolution. --Steve Argue]

***********
The Guardian (UK)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1045297,0
September 19, 2003

We are facing death in Iraq for no reason
A serving US soldier calls for the end of an occupation based on lies

By Tim Predmore 

For the past six months, I have been participating in what I believe 
to be the great modern lie: Operation Iraqi Freedom. After the 
horrific events of September 11 2001, and throughout the battle in 
Afghanistan, the groundwork was being laid for the invasion of 
Iraq. "Shock and awe" were the words used to describe the display of 
power that the world was going to view upon the start of Operation 
Iraqi Freedom. It was to be an
up-close, dramatic display of military strength and advanced 
technology from within the arsenals of the American and British 
military.

But as a soldier preparing to take part in the invasion of Iraq, the 
words "shock and awe" rang deep within my psyche. Even as we prepared 
to depart, it seemed that these two great superpowers were about to 
break the very rules that they demanded others obey. Without the 
consent of the United Nations, and ignoring the pleas of their own 
citizens, the US and Britain invaded Iraq. "Shock and awe"? Yes, the 
words correctly described the emotional impact I felt as we embarked 
on an act not of justice, but of hypocrisy.

From the moment the first shot was fired in this so-called war of 
liberation and freedom, hypocrisy reigned. After the broadcasting of 
recorded images of captured and dead US soldiers on Arab television, 
American and British leaders vowed revenge while verbally assaulting 
the networks for displaying such vivid images. Yet within hours of 
the deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons, the US government released 
horrific photographs of the two
dead brothers for the entire world to view. Again, a "do as we say 
and not as we do" scenario.

As soldiers serving in Iraq, we have been told that our purpose is to 
help the people of Iraq by providing them with the necessary 
assistance militarily, as well as in humanitarian efforts. Then tell 
me where the humanity is in the recent account in Stars and Stripes 
(the newspaper of the US military) of two young children brought to a 
US military camp by their mother in search of medical care.

The two children had, unknowingly, been playing with explosive 
ordnance they had found, and as a result they were severely burned. 
The account tells how, after an hour-long wait, they - two children - 
were denied care by two US military doctors. A soldier described the 
incident as one of many "atrocities" on the part of the US military 
he had witnessed.

Thankfully, I have not personally been a witness to atrocities - 
unless, of course, you consider, as I do, that this war in Iraq is 
the ultimate atrocity.

So what is our purpose here? Was this invasion because of weapons of 
mass destruction, as we have so often heard? If so, where are they? 
Did we invade to dispose of a leader and his regime because they were 
closely associated with Osama bin Laden? If so, where is the proof?

Or is it that our incursion is about our own economic advantage? 
Iraq's oil can be refined at the lowest cost of any in the world. 
This looks like a modern-day crusade not to free an oppressed people 
or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of
conquest and domination, but a crusade to control another nation's 
natural resource. Oil - at least to me - seems to be the reason for 
our presence.

There is only one truth, and it is that Americans are dying. There 
are an estimated 10 to 14 attacks every day on our servicemen and 
women in Iraq. As the body count continues to grow, it would appear 
that there is no immediate end in sight.

I once believed that I was serving for a cause - "to uphold and 
defend the constitution of the United States". Now I no longer 
believe that; I have lost my conviction, as well as my determination. 
I can no longer justify my service on the basis of what I believe to 
be half-truths and bold lies.

With age comes wisdom, and at 36 years old I am no longer so blindly 
led as to believe without question. From my arrival last November at 
Fort Campbell, in Kentucky, talk of deployment was heard, and as that 
talk turned to actual preparation, my heart sank and my doubts grew. 
My doubts have never faded; instead, it has been my resolve and my 
commitment that have.

My time here is almost done, as well as that of many others with whom 
I have served. We have all faced death in Iraq without reason and 
without justification. How many more must die? How many more tears 
must be shed before Americans awake and demand the return of the men 
and women whose job it is to protect them, rather than their leader's 
interest?


**********************
What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq

By Steve Argue
   Capitalism is a system of legalized exploitation, discrimination, 
war, oppression, and environmental degradation.  In this capitalist 
world enough food is produced but people go hungry.  We work if we 
are lucky, but the riches produced by our labor go into the pockets 
of the wealthy.  Yet it is the working class youth that are sent to 
go fight and die so that U.S. oil monopolies can get direct control 
trillions of dollars worth of oil under the Iraqi sand.  Meanwhile 
those same capitalists use their control of the government and the 
economy to keep the U.S. economy dependent on detrimental fossil 
fuels.  In doing so the capitalists have brought on global warming, 
an environmental and human catastrophe that has only just begun.

   Capitalism is guilty of many crimes, from the murder of 3 million 
Vietnamese with the U.S. war in Vietnam, to hunger, as well as the 
degradation of the planet itself.  For many of us who recognize 
capitalism is the problem we see socialism as the solution, but what 
is socialism?

   As I see it there are four main currents of socialist thought.  
There are those who are of the social democratic type who usually 
reject socialist revolution as impossible or counter-productive.  
Instead their leaders use toned down socialist rhetoric to fool 
workers and other progressive minded people into supporting them 
while the leaders get cushy jobs in the unions or capitalist 
government offices.  In these offices they promote an agenda of class 
collaboration, masking the fact that they are betraying the interests 
of the working class with false arguments about the common interests 
of workers and exploiters and arguments about what the situation is 
rather than struggling for what the situation should be.  Examples of 
these types of "socialists" are Prime Minister Schroeder in Germany, 
Former President Francois Mitterrand in France, and Mike Rotkin on 
the Santa Cruz California City Council.  

    The second kind of socialists are those who are uncritically 
inspired by the real gains of the socialist revolutions that created 
the Soviet Union, the Peoples Republic of China, and the revolution 
in Cuba that ended the U.S. backed Batista dictatorship.  They point 
to how these revolutions freed their countries from foreign 
imperialist control; defeated Nazi Germany; eliminated barbaric 
practices such as the foot binding of women in China and racial 
segregation in Cuba; and overturned the capitalist system of 
exploitation making sure that everyone had work, housing, was fed, 
had healthcare, and free education.  Yet these socialists (or 
communists as they are often called) often ignore the inequalities 
and repression faced by the working class from a privileged ruling 
bureaucracy that are real components of these systems.

   The third type of socialist completely rejects both the pro-
capitalist social democrats and the dictatorial communists and argues 
that the socialism they struggle for has nothing in common with 
either.  In this respect part of their philosophy is very similar to 
that of the anarchists.  It is a philosophy that is easily 
understood, but over-simplifies more complex realities. 

   There is a fourth type of socialist that I represent here.  We 
recognize the gains made by the Soviet people in overthrowing the 
Czar and later smashing Hitler, but we do not forget the crimes of 
Stalin.  Likewise we recognize the fundamental flaw made in 
that "communist" model in every subsequent socialist revolution 
since.  That fundamental flaw is the lack of real workers democracy.  
To counter this flaw we struggle for socialism on a different model, 
socialism without capitalism yes, but also socialism with democracy.  

   For many this flies in the face of their simple concepts of the 
world where everything is either good or bad.  When socialists point 
to the break down of the Russian economy with emergence of 
unemployment, homelessness, and a 10 year drop in life expectancy 
since the capitalist counter-revolution led by Yeltsin it does not 
mean that we supported everything under Soviet Communist rule, only 
that for the average person things were better than under 
capitalism.  

   Today in Russia where most Soviet youth once dreamed of being 
astronauts or doctors, they now dream of being a hitman for the mob 
or a greedy oil tycoon.

   In opposition to the Russian model (that being the capitalist 
program of counter-revolution, privatization, and austerity against 
the working class being carried out now) we call for the preservation 
of the planned economy coupled with a political revolution that 
replaces the bureaucratic caste in power in Cuba, North Korea, China, 
and Vietnam.  In doing so we recognize that this kind of political-
revolution will only come from the people of those countries 
themselves and that the intervention of the governments of the U.S., 
Britain or any other imperialist country will only bring death, 
destruction, and all the miseries of capitalist counter-revolution.  
The American capitalist class has already murdered around 6 million 
people in its wars against the people these four countries, so the 
socialist movement stands uncompromisingly in total opposition to any 
continued intervention in these countries as well as standing in 
support of their right to defend themselves militaril
y.

   Just as the main classes of the capitalist countries are divided 
between the interests of the capitalist class and its drive for 
profits at the expense of the working class, the interests of the 
world are divided between those of the weak, poor, and subjugated 
nations on the one hand and the interests of the capitalist classes 
of the rich imperialist countries on the other.  

   While the working class of the capitalist countries around the 
world often face clubs, tear gas, and even bullets and torture 
chambers for organizing to assert our interests against those of the 
capitalists; So to do the leaders of the weaker capitalist countries 
face the wrath of the imperialist capitalist class when they try to 
assert their power to control their own resources.  This is the 
essence of the Anglo-American war against Iraq.

   In the 1970s Iraq nationalized its oil fields.  This helped the 
Iraqi people by taking a chunk of the profits made off of oil out of 
the hands of the international oil monopolies and instead keeping 
them in Iraq.  This money helped pay for free healthcare and 
education.  As such this was a socialist measure carried out by 
Saddam Hussein's capitalist government.  It was also a measure that 
stood up to the interests of the rich and powerful nations.  For both 
reasons socialists supported the nationalization of Iraqi oil while 
those measures infuriated the imperialists.

   The world was very different in the 1970s.  The strength of the 
Soviet Union and its value as a trading partner alongside the defeat 
of the U.S. in its imperialist war of aggression in Southeast Asia 
helped Iraq in developing its own independent course in dealing with 
its own internal affairs and resources.  

   Does this mean that socialists support Saddam Hussein.  No.  We 
merely defend the right of Iraq as a weaker nation to run its affairs 
as it sees fit without US and British imperialist intervention and we 
support the nationalization of the oil industry.  We also understand 
that a defeat of U.S. imperialism in Iraq would strengthen the entire 
world against the seemingly invincible might of U.S. imperialism 
making other countries better able to shape their own destinies and 
independent courses as well as taking other countries out of the 
sights of the imperialists as the next target for war.  A defeat for 
the imperialist governments would also strengthen the revolutionary 
working class movements within the imperialist countries themselves.

   While defending Iraq against imperialist attack and supporting 
their right to defend themselves socialists also recognize that 
Saddam Hussein is a capitalist leader and that the Iraqi people have 
their own scores to settle with him.  Yet any government set up by a 
US occupation army will not be democratic and will only lead to the 
privatization of the resources that American oil monopolies intend to 
steal.  

   America's so-called concern for human rights can be seen in the 
past US interventions in Iraq.  Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party first 
came to power in 1963.  Immediately after taking power, based on 
lists provided by the CIA, they rounded up 5,000 leftists and trade-
union leaders and murdered them.  After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait 
we were shown pictures of Iraqi Kurds killed by poison gas in the 
U.S. media.  What we were not told is why the US was silent when this 
was happening and the fact that the US supplied the gas to kill the 
Kurds and to kill Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war.  While we are now 
told of the Iraqi repression of the Kurdish people we are not told of 
how the Turkish government is carrying out the same policies of 
genocide against the Turkish Kurds, and doing it with U.S. weaponry. 

     Many of the Kurds know that their national interest to self-
determination, without the genocidal repression they currently face 
throughout their homeland, will never be established by 
the "liberating" forces of Turkey, Iran, or US imperialism.  British 
imperialism divided Kurdistan, a country with its own unique language 
and culture, into a minority inside the nations of Iraq, Turkey, 
Syria, and Iran.  Today the Kurds are the largest nation without a 
homeland in the world.  Yet while the U.S. government supplies the 
military hardware to kill Turkish Kurds they cry crocodile tears for 
Iraqi Kurds.  Imperialism, with its motto of divide and conquer, 
never has and never will solve the Kurdish question.  A free and 
united Kurdistan will only be born through a sweeping socialist 
revolution that overthrows the capitalist regimes of Turkey, Iran, 
Iraq, and Syria while challenging the dictates and military of the 
United States.  

   Just as U.S. imperialism will never solve the Kurdish question, 
nor will it ever solve the question of women's liberation in the 
Middle East.  Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces 
in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in 
the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet 
Union.  Over 50% of Iraqi doctors are women.  Iraqi women are allowed 
to walk unescorted in the streets.  They are allowed to drive.  Iraqi 
women can even freely criticize men.  In addition Iraqi women have 
the right to work and control their own funds.  This is in stark 
contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive U.S. backed 
governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where women have no rights 
what-so-ever.

   The U.S. ruling class hates governments like Iraq, Libya, and 
Venezuela who use the profits of their oil resources partly to 
benefit the people with social programs.  Likewise they love 
governments like that of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that strip the 
people of all their rights and keep the oil profits in the hands of 
the international oil monopolies and their corrupt local servants.  
Today in the United States we face unemployment, homelessness, and a 
lack of health care.  The billions of dollars the U.S. is squandering 
on killing Iraqis to steal their resources should be spent to benefit 
the working class and poor of the United States.

   The Peace and Freedom Party is a socialist party with 80,000 
registrants in the state of California.  As a political party that 
calls for a democratic and socialist change in American society we've 
opposed all U.S. wars since we were founded in 1967 and call for 
sweeping changes in American society to feed, house, employ, and 
provide health care for every person.

   Register to vote with the Peace and Freedom Party!  Resist the war 
in the streets, workplaces, schools, and in the barracks!  Organize 
to end all imperial bloodshed through socialist revolution!

The homepage for Liberation News can be found at 
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news  



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
ReplayTV: Control live television
Special Sale: 50% off ReplayTV
CNet Ranked #1 over Tivo!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/aUMW7B/A6qGAA/ySSFAA/k2holB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

DAMN THE CROSS!!! 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/