Weekly Worker 474 Thursday April 3 2003

Letters

Military support

Jack Conrad writes: “... Saddam remains the enemy of the peoples of Iraq - but now, with the imperialists overrunning their land, not their main enemy. There must be tactical shifts in the struggle against his dictatorship. The goal remains to put power into the hands of the workers, peasants and urban poor - but the US-UK forces must now be sent packing” (‘Conquerors, not liberators’ Weekly Worker March 27).

I couldn’t agree more. But need I point out the obvious: that the tactic Conrad advocates is called military, as opposed to political, support? It is advocated spontaneously by perhaps a majority of the people of the Middle East under the blows of the US and British invaders. But the only “shift” going on here is the one being executed by Conrad and the CPGB, who have up till now argued against the whole idea of military support as a notion peculiar to isolated Trotskyist sects.

Jim Cullen
New York

Greater enemy

I agree with what you say about Saddam Hussein and I also agree that US-British imperialism is the greater enemy. A defeat of these imperialist forces would be a great victory. However, it is not likely.

There is still the possibility of people in Iraq welcoming the conquerors, because they fear them, or they are glad the war is over and they survived. Many may be glad that Saddam Hussein is gone. But, with the many deaths that have occurred over the last days, and the many more to come, this scenario is becoming increasingly less probable. My hope is that, if they should enter Baghdad, they will be greeted with stones instead of flowers.

Here in America, most people are appallingly stupid, as they adhere to all this jingoistic nonsense about ‘supporting the troops’, no matter what they are doing. I hope people in Great Britain are not so stupid.

Timothy Lauby
USA

China analogy

Your party probably has a dim view of Maoism, but what if events unfolded in Iraq as they did in China in World War II? Put Saddam in the role of Chiang, and the ‘coalition’ forces (all two of them) in the role of Japan.

It would be nice if the Iraqi proletariat and peasantry took the opportunity to organise independent red paramilitaries to resist the US/UK invasion and then slough off the Ba’athist parasites, as the Chinese did the Kuomintang, once they finished off the Japanese invaders.

But of course, only the Iraqis themselves can decide what to do. Our job is to make sure our governments do not make their choices for them.

Ed Yoo
email

Right slogan

Jack Conrad says in regard to the US-UK coalition forces: “We prefer their defeat to their victory.” Quite right. A victory of the coalition forces would reinforce the plans of George W Bush and US imperialism. In the UK it would also bolster support for Tony Blair.

The best result would be for the defeat of coalition forces after a long drawn out war. But what do we say to social groups C2, D and E, who, according to The Guardian, “support our troops”?

Victory to the people of Iraq would mean the death of many UK troops. Also the UK troops mostly come from working class backgrounds. Are not these troops just ‘workers in uniform’ who joined the forces to get away from pockets of high unemployment?

John Smithee
Cambridgeshire

Wrong slogan

I am unhappy with slogans which appear to call for the military defeat of America and Britain, or victory for Iraq.

We must distinguish very carefully between the capitalist states at war here (which include the Iraqi Ba’athist state), and the role of ordinary working people, here and in Iraq. It cannot be any part of revolutionary communist/socialist strategy to call for the military defeat of one’s ‘own’ state. True, this may give rise to opportunities to overthrow it by political revolution, as in 1917 Russia. It could equally mean chemical or nuclear annihilation of the home population.

Political opposition to capitalist/imperialist war must rule out advocating military victory or defeat for any particular side. How would military victory for the Iraqi capitalist state further the cause of the Iraqi people to free themselves from this fascistic terror?

However, the Iraqi people are clearly the ones being subject to attack, rather than the American or British. It must be right for the Iraqi people to resist the American and British onslaught, by whatever means necessary, including armed resistance, alongside the standing army of the Iraqi state. The use of irregular forces and tactics to harass and wear down the invasion forces can be seen as part of this more generalised resistance, defending the interests of the Iraqi people, rather than the state.

Armed resistance to external invasion based on the armed masses, rather than privileged units placed above seems to be entirely right, can be seen as a proto-element of the new forms of the Paris Commune-type state power the working class will need when we are ready to make socialist revolution.

Andrew Northall
Northants

Frightening

I totally agree with your article (‘Conquerors, not liberators’ Weekly Worker March 27). I may not have considered myself a communist before, but now I am at least thinking of it.

This war scares me to death. I can see huge forces being unleashed in Britain, with the working class being easy prey to the easy message of the fascists - ie, that dirty-skinned foreigners are the cause of all their hardships.

The British National Party may not officially support the war (siding with Blair would be too much), but they will welcome with open arms all the small-minded council estate racists who talk of throwing asylum-seekers back in the channel!

If you object to my description of the working classes, may I remind you that fascists only gain power and influence when the working class joins the fold. Oldham, Rochdale, Halifax, Bradford are not Tory strongholds.

Nigel Garcia
Andorra

Dismay

It is with great dismay that I felt like throwing the Weekly Worker in the bin on seeing “Victory to the Iraqi people” - following last week’s ridiculous headline, “Rather defeat for US-UK …” This is sounding more and more like the Workers Revolutionary Party and Socialist Workers Party, which I personally have no time for.

Mervyn Davies
Colchester

Censorship

Censorship is in full swing at the BBC! I have sent around 30 emails opposing the war to the BBC website. None of them published. In despair I turned to the BBC’s message boards and got published a message concerning American support for rightwing regimes. This was too much for the BBC who deleted my message after around five minutes.

Stuart Whatley
Norway

Useful idiot

The war will be stopped once Saddam and his rapist gang are out of power. I wonder if you would still want his regime in power if a member of your family had been killed, tortured or raped by a member of Saddam’s regime?

Now, be honest with yourself and your conscience and let the coalition of free nations do their just work. Do not continue to be a useful idiot!

Mike Joseph
email

British salvation

Recent events have placed you in Britain in an unprecedented situation. With one concerted effort you can accomplish what millions of people around the world can only dream of. You can stop the war on Iraq and save the lives, not only of British and American men and women, but also the lives of millions of Iraqis.

Great Britain has already played a critical role in this war. While the United States has developed into the world’s only superpower and has launched a reckless, illegal and immoral war, it could not have started it without the support of Great Britain.

Virtually no one in the world outside the United States would have believed the lurid tales coming out of the White House without the ‘confirmation’ provided by prime minister Blair and his cabinet. If Great Britain had opposed this war, the United Nations and international law, as well peace, security, stability and harmony around the world, would have been strengthened rather than shattered.

Now the war is ‘going badly’. The Iraqi working class and people, whatever they think of the regime of Saddam Hussein, are defending their country and, in the face of hopeless odds, are resisting heroically. Now British and US soldiers in Basra and throughout Iraq are slowly but surely being turned - against their will - into war criminals.

But - without the support of Great Britain, this war cannot last another day. History has placed in the hands of the British working class a weapon - a weapon not of war, but of peace, a weapon which at this time can bring the war in Iraq to an end. And that weapon is a general strike. That weapon will save millions of lives, end the war and restore and strengthen the United Nations and international law, as well as peace, security, stability and harmony around the world.

Robert Ryan
Ottawa

Behold

We are continually reading about islamic fundamentalism and the Koran. Let us have a look at the jewish Torah, the first five books of the christian Bible:

“Turn you and take your journey and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the vale, and in the south, and by the seaside, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river Euphrates. Behold, I have set the land before you: go to the land in which the lord swore unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them” (Deuteronomy 1, 7, 8).

“But thou shalt utterly destroy them: namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the lord thy god hath commanded thee” (ibid 20,16,17).

For ‘ites’ read Palestinian Arabs. The Euphrates flows just south of Baghdad.

Ivor Kenna
London

SA bulwark

“The Socialist Alliance is dead. Long live the Socialist Alliance,” proclaimed the Weekly Worker (March 6). Such a bold statement needs closer examination.

Electoral work is a major area of development for the SA and its component parts. The idea and practice of challenging Blair’s Labour Party at the ballot box has been a substantial change in tactics and political outlook for much of the traditional left, where this amounts to a break from Trotskyite orthodoxy: ie, auto-Labourism. Challenging the ‘lesser of two evils’ theory in practice has had real concrete implications for comrades.

Electoral work is of significant importance for comrades in the north west. As many comrades will be aware, the British National Party has made considerable electoral headway in the mill towns of Lancashire and south Yorkshire. Plans are afoot to use their recent work in Oldham as a launch pad for deeper infiltration of Greater Manchester.

South Manchester SA has already put in place a raft of candidates, and other local alliances are doing the same. It is vital that the alliance has a clear understanding of the need for electoral work in this period, in order to challenge New Labour and the BNP, in equal measure building up support from the working class.

Standing in elections helps weld together the component parts of the SA around real political questions and draw in new forces. Having said that, the current structures are in need of development, which must include closer ties between component organisations in a partyist direction rather than a backward step to loose autonomy or bureaucracy.

While the People’s Assemblies are a welcome development, they need to be approached in the concrete area by area. In Manchester there is no PA, but there is an active and well attended SA. Where should comrades focus their energies? The short answer is neither one nor the other, as both are sites for struggle. In Manchester and the north west the SA is still the main vehicle for rapprochement with other groups and for electoral work. The Stop the War Coalition gives an opportunity to engage with the wider population who are moving into political action. But this must act as a conduit to the SA - party-building is the main task from all these sites.

When a site for struggle with regular and well attended meetings and an established structure exists, it would seem folly to abandon this to chase shadow PAs, which are quantifiably at a lower level of development currently.

Philip Cambridge
Manchester

SSP example

Looking from the outside, I find it very sad that the Socialist Alliance project has proven to be such an utter shambles.

Just now, as it comes up to the May elections, the SA should be prospering, capitalising on the grotesque policies carried out by the ‘Labour’ government. There are many people out there who are sick of privatisation and there are many more who are opposed to the war. These people are being offered no alternative when they should be.

This time, more than ever before, a well organised Socialist Alliance is needed. I contrast the SA to the Scottish Socialist Party, which is flourishing and looking forward to perhaps a 400% or 500% increase in the number of its MSPs. Whether this happens or not, what is definite is that it will increase its share of the vote.

I read of concerns, from those in other parts of the UK, about the increasing importance the SSP is attaching to independence. Can anyone be surprised by this trend, when its sister party, instead of making similar progress, has not even got out of the starting blocks? Socialism of any sort, although still far away, is looking nearer in Scotland than before and it is now up to the SA to start releasing its potential or continue to be insignificant.

Julie Thomson
Fife

Labour racism

Thank you for pointing out the Labour Party’s imperialist history. With support for the war up, I am appalled to think that British people have allowed themselves to be duped by the propaganda.

Let’s face up to it: a majority of British people think imperialism and the racist warmongering that goes with it is okay if there are benefits for them and if it gives them a chauvinistic high. Most British don’t care about Iraqis dying, because of racism.

Thatcher relied on racism and war to keep office. New Labour is doing the same. We should mount a ‘Coalition against the Labour Party’ and campaign for people to boycott and withdraw all support. We should specifically target ethnic minorities in the cities, where Labour depends on black and Asian votes to get elected. We should point out the racism and imperialism and lying behind this war.

Enough is enough! Never again must the oppressed lend support to this racist and imperialist organisation, which just uses black votes and black workers to gain office, whilst implementing racist policies. All the good work done by the Labour left is reduced to ashes, as the reactionaries forever keep power and control in the Labour Party.

Indira Sethi
email

Spilled beans

Unfortunately, it is a fairy commonly held belief that asylum-seekers receive better treatment than many people already living in Britain. Those who subscribe to such a view may like to consider the statement below, which recently appeared in the press.

Following reports of very frightened asylum-seekers being sworn at, spat on and threatened with dogs and knives in Scotland, a court heard that “people think there are a lot of [asylum-seekers] coming, moving into their area and getting privileges. It is complete rubbish. We are never taking about large numbers of people. It is one of the great myths.”

Readers may be interested to learn that the above statement was carried in the March 22 edition of that quintessential mouthpiece of the establishment, The Daily Telegraph. And which militant asylum rights campaigner made such a claim? Why, it was none other than high court judge Mr Justice Moses.

What must the editors of viciously racist tabloid rags like the Daily Mail, The Sun and Daily Express be thinking when another rightwing paper reports on how a judge could have spilled the beans in such fashion?

Geoff Smith
Birmingham

Aussie SA

I’d like to comment on David Lee’s letter (Weekly Worker March 27). He is of course right that the Socialist Alliance in Australia received derisory results. As much as they may use the spin that the candidates were busy with anti-war work, it does not really excuse the fact that the SA has received lower votes than the previously ‘sectarian’ Democratic Socialist Party, or the Communist Party of Australia in 1999 or even within a bee’s dick of the high votes the Progressive Labor Party received in the past.

Another issue I’d like to comment on is the false impression that the DSP wants to ‘do a Scotland’. They in fact want to create a more centralised party, but it is more equivalent of a corporate takeover, rather than “putting more resources into the alliance”. It is not the International Socialist Organisation, which scotched it for its own sectarian reasons. They have done it, because they rightly see it as a manoeuvre of the DSP. All along the DSP have been trying to split the ISO.

The real failure of the Socialist Alliance, like the PLP before it, is its orientation to the working class and its movement. It sees itself as ‘the’ working class movement, which causes it to make great mistakes. For example in the Cunningham by-election, one of the first wins for the left, the SA stood itself rather than supporting the local left candidate, and building the left. As a result, they got a derisory result for presenting a ‘socialist alternative’.

Dave Murray
Newcastle, Australia