A Plea to the Anti-War Movement

An excerpt from Joe Davison's essay:

....During the Vietnam War the left wing of the US antiwar movement succeeded in pulling the entire movement left, supporting unequivocally the National Liberation Front (NLF) and successfully linking the war with the black struggle that was raging at home. This reached and permeated the ranks of the troops, which along with the tenacity of the NLF led to their demoralization and the near disintegration of military discipline and effectiveness towards the war's end. Of course, this won't be achieved overnight. It may even take years. But now surely is the time to begin the process of turning the antiwar struggle into a class struggle and thus helping the Iraqi people in their desperate resistance to a brutal occupation. So far, despite facing overwhelming odds, their resistance grows. Two years after the project to occupy and control Iraq and her natural resources was initiated by American plutocrats in Washington D.C., the next project on the list should have been underway. Given the now publicized aims of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) drawn up by neocons back in the early 1990s, we should now be protesting about US troops occupying Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, even North Korea. But, no, none of that, no other invasions or occupations have taken place. Why? Simply because of the tenacity, bravery and determination of the Iraqi people. For, unwittingly perhaps, at this point in history they are holding the line against a new age of imperialism unleashed by a dominant superpower which, since the collapse of the Soviet Union back in 1991, has steadily moved towards a position of complete and irresistible global hegemony. Never since the dark days of the Roman Empire have the troops of one nation been present in so many different parts of the world. Today there are US military bases in Central Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South and Central America, and Africa. US warships and aircraft carriers patrol the seven seas in self contained battle groups, ready to deploy at a moment's notice enough destructive firepower to level a nation of their own volition. With this in mind it then follows that the Iraqi people are resisting, not only in their own interests but by extension in the interests of working, oppressed and poor people everywhere, including the United States. As such it is high time that the US antiwar movement came to their aid with more than the usual tired round of permitted marches and demos which offer little except a temporary palliative to the consciences of those taking part. Put simply, in the U.S., antiwar must be turned into class war. No less than the future and fate of the world depends on it.