Two back-to-back victories, from the point of view of those in power, has left some commentators speculating that U.S. foreign policy has turned a page towards a less militaristic approach under the guidance of President Obama. These events are the killing of Colonel Qaddafi, leading Libya’s new leaders to declare liberation, followed by Obama’s announcement that all U.S. troops in Iraq will be back home by the end of the year.

Those claiming that these events mark a shift away from the militaristic approach adopted by former President Bush justify their position with a superficial analysis. For them U.S. foreign policy is determined by the cleverness and stated intentions of leading government officials, looking at leaders such as President Obama in isolation from the powerful economic interests they represent. History is reduced to a parade of personalities rather than the play of larger social forces that appear in the political realm today. Consequently, starting from a superficial premise, they end up with wrong conclusions regarding the significance of historical events. This approach sheds no light on what is happening in Libya and Iraq, but it is useful for President Obama’s re-election campaign.

Like former President Bush, President Obama’s first and foremost preoccupation is pursuing a foreign policy that increases the power and profits of U.S. corporations on a global scale. Any tactical shift in approach must be viewed with this in mind. The ends justify the means in foreign policy and in order to understand recent developments, we must comprehend how this policy serves the wealthy interests behind Obama.

The Iraq War Ends?

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is a partial concession to public sentiment that is overwhelmingly opposed to this war. Continuing the Iraq occupation on the scale it has been pursued can only be a source of political instability in this country. At the same time, however, the withdrawal of U.S. troops is a concession to the people of Iraq, since their hatred for the U.S. military prevented Iraqi government officials from offering immunity to U.S. soldiers from prosecution for crimes they commit in Iraq. Had the public sentiment been different, the Iraqi government would have been glad to offer the immunity. However, this withdrawal has only occurred after Iraq’s oil industry has been privatized, allowing U.S. companies to snatch up the lion’s share, and a government has been cobbled together that is dependent on maintaining this and other business arrangements conducive to U.S. corporate profits and control.

At best, after the destruction of Iraq’s once strong infrastructure, the killing of an estimated million and a half Iraqis, the deaths of 4,400 Americans, and the squandering of nearly $1 trillion during a time of economic crisis, President Obama’s announcement is more bitter than sweet. Yet, on closer inspection, it is far from an end to the occupation it is being touted as. Sixteen thousand “civilian employees,” who are largely armed independent contractors, will remain. Whi
le this is useful for securing corporate interests, it will be a continuing source of violence and instability in Iraq. What is more, this presence will act as a foot in the door for again escalating the presence of U.S. troops, should the need arise.

Regime Change in Libya

In Libya, Gaddafi’s killing is being proclaimed as an event marking that nation’s liberation and an example of how President Obama’s approach of creating coalitions and making partnerships with other nations such as France, Italy, and England can help rid the world of dictators. In order to be convincing, such arguments depend on social amnesia. The execution of Saddam Hussein did nothing to stabilize and liberate Iraq. In fact, his supporters launched a series of bombings shortly thereafter. More importantly, however, such arguments attempt to justify a policy of “regime change” that is consistent with the Bush Administration.

This policy has nothing to do with liberation or humanitarian concerns, as is peddled to the public. It is entirely based on the cold calculations of geo-political politics guided by the interests of corporate profit and the intimidation of anyone who tries to impede these interests. In the case of Libya, it is not difficult to determine what is involved in these calculations.

Libya is also a major exporter of oil, pumping out 1.6 million barrels of oil a day before the civil war. When Qaddafi came to power, he nationalized much of the state’s economy, creating an obstacle for unfettered corporate plunder. It is primarily for this reason that Qaddafi was branded a pariah by western powers. Over the last ten years Qaddafi managed to shed this label, particularly when he began to implement neo-liberal policies, opening up Libya to multinational corporations.

However, this move led to falling living standards and growing inequality which, in turn, greatly contributed to the discontent that sparked the uprising against Qaddafi. This uprising was part of the Arab Spring that has overturned U.S. friendly regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and posed a potential threat to European and U.S. business arrangements in the region. It was necessary for these powers to find a foothold in diverting the Arab Spring away from challenging these profitable relations. Seeing that Qaddafi was unable to control the internal situation in Libya, the U.S. and some NATO member states orchestrated military incursions to secure their own interests and to make sure to remind those rebel Libyans who was really in charge.

NATO was quick to recognize the self-proclaimed National Transitional Council (NTC) as the new leadership of Libya. Many of the grassroots groups involved in the uprising against Qaddafi regard the NTC with justified suspicion. It is largely composed of former officials in Qaddafi’s regime and others who want to accelerate the same economic policies Qaddafi was pursuing. While these policies promise greater profits for multinational corporations, this enrichment will come at the cost of working peoples’ living standards. Because of this continuing conflict, nothing is settled in Libya. President Obama’s policy has not achieved democracy and liberation, only a different means of achieving the same aims of making bigger corporate profits through grinding exploitation, as was the aim of the Bush Administration.

The attitude of the Obama administration towards events in Libya could not have been more chillingly revealed than in a recent CBS interview with Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. In it she says of Qaddafi’s murder with unguarded sadistic laughter, “We came, we saw, he died.” This is a threatening attitude to send out to the world; run afoul with U.S. interests and you may face the same fate as Qaddafi. It goes without saying that such murderous arrogance could also be applied to popular elected leaders who defy U.S. dictates, such as President Chavez in Venezuela and President Morales in Bolivia.

Peace and Occupy Movement

President Obama’s foreign policy does not represent a fundamental shift away from the Bush Administration. At best it is a tactical temporary maneuver based on conjunctional considerations.

If a fundamental change is to be made regarding a less militaristic foreign policy, the powers behind the presidency will have to be confronted. Wars abroad, though used to divert the people in the U.S. from their real enemies, are also an extension of the war on workers at home. They are the byproduct of a system geared to enrich a tiny elite at the expense of those whose collective labor produces all wealth.

This is why the Occupy Movement and its re-energizing of the unions presents such a potential force for ending the wars and mobilizing working people to defend themselves against corporate attack. By placing the interests of all working people and their allies in direct opposition to Wall Street, this emerging movement is challenging the forces that profit from war and is establishing the basis for genuine international solidarity.

As Wikileaks continues to release the U.S. documents labeled “secret,” “confidential,” etc., embarrassing governments around the world, the following statements by Trotsky and Lenin, made shortly after the Soviets took power, gain particularly keen relevance. As both illustrate, the Bolsheviks denounced secret diplomacy. Nor could they do otherwise. As Marxists, the Bolsheviks fought for an end to class exploitation and rule by a small, rich, capitalist minority. They were dedicated to building a society that operated in everyone’s interests, not just in the interests of the rich. But this goal in turn requires that the majority must themselves rule, which is impossible without a fully informed population. As Trotsky argues below, “The abolition of secret diplomacy is the primary condition for an honest, popular, truly democratic foreign policy.” In stark contrast, he observed, “Secret diplomacy is a necessary tool for a propertied minority that is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its interests.”
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Statement by Leon Trotsky on the Publication of the Secret Treaties
November 22, 1917

In publishing the secret diplomatic documents from the foreign policy archives of Tsarism and of the bourgeois coalition Governments of the first seven months of the revolution, we are carrying out the undertaking that we made when our party was in opposition. Secret diplomacy is a necessary tool for a propertied minority that is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its interests. Imperialism, with its dark plans of conquest and its robber alliances and deals, developed the system of secret diplomacy to the highest level. The struggle against the imperialism that is exhausting and destroying the peoples of Europe is at the same time a struggle against capitalist diplomacy, which has cause enough to fear the light of day. The Russian people, and the peoples of Europe and the whole world, should learn the documentary truth about the plans forged in secret by the financiers and industrialists together with their parliamentary and diplomatic agents. The peoples of Europe have paid for the right to this truth with countless sacrifices and universal economic desolation.

The abolition of secret diplomacy is the primary condition for an honest, popular, truly democratic foreign policy. The Soviet Government regards it as its duty to carry out such a policy in practice. That is precisely why, while openly proposing an immediate armistice to all the belligerent peoples and their Governments, we are at the same time publishing these treaties and agreements, which have lost all binding force for the Russian workers, soldiers, and peasants who have taken power into their own hands.

The bourgeois politicians and journalists of Germany and Austria-Hungary may try to make use of the documents published in order to present the diplomacy of the Central Empires in a more advantageous light. But any such attempt would be doomed to pitiful failure, and that for two reasons. In the first place, we intend quickly to place before the tribunal of public opinion secret documents that treat sufficiently clearly of the diplomacy of the Central Empires. Secondly, and more important, the methods of secret diplomacy are as universal as imperialist robbery. When the German proletariat enters the revolutionary path leading to the secrets of their chancelleries, they will extract documents no whit inferior to those that we are about to publish. It only remains to hope that this will take place quickly.

The workers’ and peasants’ Government abolishes secret diplomacy and its intrigues, codes, and lies. We have nothing to hide. Our program, expresses the ardent wishes of millions of workers, soldiers, and peasants. We want the rule of capital to be overthrown as soon as possible. In exposing to the entire world the work of the ruling classes, as expressed in the secret diplomatic documents, we address the workers with the call which forms the unchangeable foundation of our foreign policy: ‘Proletarians of all countries, unite.’

Source:
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The Decree on Peace (Excerpt)
Vladimir Lenin
November 8, 1917

The government abolishes secret diplomacy, and, for its part, announces its firm intention to conduct all negotiations quite openly in full view of the whole people. It will proceed immediately with the full publication of the secret treaties endorsed or concluded by the government of landowners and capitalists from February to October 25, 1917. The government proclaims the unconditional and immediate annulment of everything contained in these secret treaties insofar as it is aimed, as is mostly the case, at securing advantages and privileges for the Russian landowners and capitalists and at the retention, or extension, of the annexations made by the Great Russians.

Source: Marxist Internet Archive: Trotsky

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Concluding Speech Following the Discussion (Excerpt)
Vladimir Lenin
November 8, 1917

There is still another point, comrades, to which you must pay the most careful attention. The secret treaties must be published. The clauses dealing with annexations and indemnities must be annulled. There are various clauses, comrades — the predatory governments, you know, not only made agreements between themselves on plunder, but among them they also included economic agreements and various other clauses on good-neighborly relations.

We shall not bind ourselves by treaties. We shall not allow ourselves to be entangled by treaties. We reject all clauses on plunder and violence, but we shall welcome all clauses containing provisions for good-neighborly relations and all economic agreements; we cannot reject these. We propose an armistice for three months; we choose a lengthy period because the peoples are exhausted, the peoples long for a respite from this bloody shambles that has lasted over three years. We must realize that the peoples should be given an opportunity to discuss the peace terms and to express their will with parliament participating, and this takes time.

Source: Marxists Internet Archive: Lenin

The argument is won: capitalism as an effective system to organise society and provide for human needs has expired. The evidence is conclusive. Trillions of dollars to kickstart the economy in the US and Europe may have given an ephemeral lease of life to the financial class to spin the casino wheel once again, but it is more apparent by the day that the tentative “recovery” has spluttered to a standstill. Gridlocked by unprecedented levels of personal and national debts, the engine of production — the real economy — is in a state of rigor mortis.

This collapse has been a long time in the making. Decades of easy credit was up to now a way for the ruling class — government, corporations, financial institutions — to let the majority of workers subsidise the chronic loss in their livelihoods, which have been drained since the mid-1970s by the oligarchy’s self-aggrandisement from wage cutting, regressive taxation and public spending cuts. The political class — whether liberal or conservative, right or left — have facilitated this giant wealth-siphoning process.

However, the point is that the economic system is now objectively shown to be moribound. And it is impossible for so-called mainstream politicians to think of any other way of doing business. They are ideologically blind. Recall former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s arrogant assertion: “There is no alternative”. Likewise, US President Barack Obama insists on throwing billions more dollars at the banks and financiers on Wall Street. But that won’t kickstart an economy in which millions of workers are without jobs and homes or who are on crumby wages and up to their necks in debt. The profit system has hit an historic dead-end and this gridlock is a result of deep trends to do with the decline in capitalism as a mode of social production (falling wages and profits and the concomitant explosion in financial speculation and debts).

Widespread poverty and human misery is now seen on a massive scale in the so-called developed world. Some 40 million Americans, for example, are subsisting on food stamps. The distinction between “developed” and “developing” economies (always a myth anyway) is blurred. The ranks of the world’s long-suffering poor are swelled with dispossessed blue and white-collar workers and their families from across the US and Europe. Together more than ever, they stand shut out from those gated havens of obscene wealth for a global minority.

Similar historic junctures have been witnessed before when capitalism floundered from its inexorable tendency to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Disturbingly, the release valve for the system and its bankruptcy has always been war. Death and destruction is the lender of last resort to an economic system that — despite itself — inevitably polarises wealth to an unworkable degree. The First and Second World Wars — claiming more than 70 million over a period of less than 10 years lives — were effectively the ultimate, grotesque bailouts.

In our time, war, it seems, has already begun. The US oligarchy and its NATO allies are waging a veritable war on the world: killing, disappearing and incarcerating millions of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan — a war that is expanding into Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Horn of Africa, with the militarisation of sea lanes and oceans (see Chossudovsky, www.Globalresearch.ca) and the setting up of “forward projecting” military and missile bases in every continent (see Rozoff, ditto). On top of ordinary poverty and misery, the world is truly seeing another historic descent into barbarism. Given this war-mongering dynamic, the growing US antagonism with Iran, Russia and China is far from an idle threat. It is the logical next step for a deeply illogical economic system.

But history is not inevitable. We are not necessarily programmed to repeat its horrors. A combination of global communications among citizens and political and social consciousness may be enough to prevent a military conflagration and overthrow the misrule of the oligarchy. What is needed is a) a widening of the recognition that capitalism as a system of social production is finished; and b) the case has to be confidently made that an alternative is very possible. That alternative is socialism (the subject of a further article). To those who remain skeptical, they should bear in mind the stark choice that Rosa Luxemberg foresaw for humanity: that is, socialism or barbarism. And we already have the latter.

Since November of 2006 when the Democrats regained majorities in both Houses of Congress, I began my gradual awakening to the fact that the “Two”-Party Robber Class political system is a fraud.

Nancy Pelosi ran for her Congressional seat in 2006 (which would for certain turn transform her into the House Speakership if the Dems became the majority) promising “No more blank checks for war.” She broke that promise, but kept her treasonous “impeachment is off the table” promise. What Nancy Pelosi really meant was the opposite: “I will give George Bush EVERY blank check for war that he asks of me! Why wouldn’t I? I am protecting him from accountability — billions of dollars for war is nothing!”

You have to understand, that Nancy Pelosi’s district is PRO-Impeachment and ANTI-war. If she refused to fund the wars and impeach George Bush, she would be following the will of her constituency. However, the “Two”-Party Robber Class political system protects and preserves itself no matter what party the criminal belongs to.

Now, after 89 days of an Obama administration that is also protecting the torturing murderers of BushCo and has broken its marginal promise to bring (some) troops home from Iraq by the end of 2011 and is escalating hostilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, some so-called progressives are finally seeing the error in supporting Obama during the elections.

I left the Democratic Party in May of 2007 because of the continued war funding and the continued lack of accountability and I was roundly, thoroughly and viciously attacked by the same “progressives” who are beginning to doubt the “hope” that they bought into, or allowed themselves to be co-opted by. Some are even calling for an “independent third party” movement here in the US to challenge the corrupt two parties!

Really? Where were these “progressives” when I was running against the Queen of the Robber Class here in SF as an independent? Their heads were buried in the sand, or they were wearing the Rose Colored Glasses of denial and now we are mired in a situation that cannot be remedied: once the Genie is out of the bottle, she can’t be easily put back in. Do you think the Democrats will hold Obama to account, when they failed to hold Bush to account? I doubt it and we will continue to see the Obama-Summers-Geithner-Bernanke collapse of the economy and the continued war crimes of the Obama-Clinton-Gates occupations for profit.

It’s way past time to stop giving the “Two” Party Robber Class system “a chance.” It’s time to stop the “inside” part of an “inside-outside” strategy. We have virtually nobody on the inside who will speak for us besides a token bone thrown out of those marble cesspools and we have to stand up for our class.

Warren Buffet, a famous Robber Class business man who loves to dabble in the Democratic part of the One-Robber Class party said: “It is a class war, and my class is winning.” They are only winning because we allow them to.

We have been beaten down for so long by the Robber Class we actually believe that we should send our sons and daughters to the Robber Class wars to die and kill other sons and daughters to make the Robber Class wealthier!

We actually believe that we are not entitled to the same health care that the Robbers in Congress receive (110%).

We actually believe that we should work our asses off and go into insurmountable debt to be able to send our children to college.

We actually believe that we are not entitled to our shacks while the Robbers have many mansions (so many, John McCain doesn’t even know how many he owns) that sit empty, except for servants most of the time. Some people don’t even have a roof over their heads and many tent cities are popping up over the country and the obscenity of a horrible homeless problem makes it difficult for me to sleep at night, knowing so many have no homes!

Now are you ready for an independent third party that is pro-worker; pro-peace; pro-the rule of law for everybody, especially the Robber Class; pro-environment; pro-prosperity for all; and above all Pro-Us?

President Obama basically said that we can’t demonize every investor who earns a profit, because “we are all in this together.” Sorry, but I am going to have to call a big fat “bull-shit” on this one.

When Obama said “we” did he have a mouse in his pocket? Obama, and his family have a very opulent, slave-built roof over their heads. He travels on the public nickel, his children attend an exclusive Washington, DC private school that has organic food on its menu, and has health care that covers everyone in his family from head to toe and side to side and inside out.

Even though he and every member of the administration, Congress and the Supreme Court are not hurting for anything, the bastard (sorry if your parents weren’t married when you were conceived) Wall Street banksters are receiving billions of dollars of government welfare and are not so good about being in “this together” with us.

The only concrete steps the Treasury and Fed have taken are to buy “toxic” assets (if something is toxic can it still be an asset?) so companies like Goldman Sachs (via AIG) can have the public tit rescue them from their stupider than crap mistakes.

WE the ROBBED Class are in this together. THEY the ROBBER Class are in it for themselves. How many times does Obama have to demonstrate that his economic recovery is nothing but Reaganomics wrapped in a little bit of populist rhetoric to make it easier for the mis-informed Robbed Class to swallow. If anything transpires to alleviate the suffering in our Class at all, it will be because some of the prosperity got through the cracks in the deeply cancerous system and trickled ON us. Rest assured, this is just a mistake and the only time the Robber Class cares about us, is when the interests of the two classes collide.

I will feel like I am “in this” with the Obamas when I have a free house, free health care and if my children would not have to go into lifelong debt to pay for university.

I wonder if the wall to wall homeless population (it’s growing at an alarming rate) here in San Francisco feels “in this together” with the Wall Street Robbers?

I wonder if the people standing waiting for hours in municipal Emergency Rooms waiting to get some, any medical attention feel “in this together” with Congress which has 110% medical coverage?

I wonder if the foot soldiers for the Empire feel “in this together” with the War Profiteer Robbers?

I wonder if the victims of the drug wars and street wars feel “in this together” with the children of the Robbers who ride to their schools in limos with bodyguards?

I wonder if our brothers and sisters living in tent cities with their children feel “in this together” with the Pelosis and Feinsteins of the world who live in their obscenely huge mansions in exclusive neighborhoods and fly back and forth from DC in private jets that suck down gas at an immoral rate?

I wonder if our brothers and sisters who just cashed a final unemployment check feels “in this together” with the Robbers who just cashed millions in bonuses?

I, myself, feel “in this together” with the homeless, hungry, sick, jobless, struggling, stressed, frightened, confused, yet resilient, brave and strong.

WE are in this together. WE need to step outside of the Robber Class system and start to build our own systems to help each other through this Robber Class/Goldman Sachs/Federal Reserve depression.

Please order your copy of my new book, Myth America: The 10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution, (available soon) today! (We are having temporary problems with pay-pal) Send 10.00 to:

Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox, 55 Chumasero Dr., STE 5D, San Francisco, Ca 94132

http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com

The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is joining with other coalitions, organizations, and networks to organize a united MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION to mobilize people across the United States to take part in a March on the Pentagon on Saturday, March 21, marking six years of war and occupation of Iraq.

Demonstrations will also be held on that date in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities across the U.S.

These actions will remind the nation that all U.S. military forces must be brought home from Afghanistan and Iraq, and that the U.S. antiwar movement – marching behind a banner demanding “Out Now!” — will intensify its struggle to make it happen.

The actions are needed to assure the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries threatened by Washington’s expansionist policies that tens of millions of people in this country support their right to settle their own destinies without U.S. interventions, occupations and murderous wars. International law recognizes and we demand that the U.S. respect the right to self-determination. We reject any notion that the U.S. is the world’s self-appointed cop.

The March 21 united mass actions are also needed at this time of economic meltdown to demand jobs for all; a moratorium on foreclosures; rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure; guaranteed quality education and health care for all; an end to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and deportations; and funding for sorely needed social programs. So long as trillions of dollars continue to be spent on wars, occupations, and bailouts to the banks and corporate elite, the domestic needs of people in the U.S. can never be met.

The So-called Status of Forces Agreement

As for Iraq, regardless of what is in the so-called “Status of Forces Agreement,” the war makers in Washington plan to continue the occupation indefinitely. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops and mercenary soldiers will be maintained to carry out a number of missions that are listed, but in reality their aim is to carry out the one mission that is not mentioned: ensure the U.S. subjugation of Iraq to exploit its oil resources and dominate the Middle East.

Any doubt about Washington’s intentions should be dispelled by the statement by Gen. Raymond Odierno, who said on December 13, 2008 that U.S. forces would remain indefinitely in dozens of bases in Iraq cities, despite language in the Status of Forces Agreement that appeared to require a withdrawal from urban areas by next summer. (Wall Street Journal 12/15/08)

As for Afghanistan, it is not the “good war” claimed by the Obama administration and the power structure, which plans to increase the number of U.S. troops in that country by 20,000. Afghanistan will prove to be another U.S. Vietnam. The U.S. war will only result in a continuation of the slaughter that has been the hallmark of all previous occupations by foreign powers.

The daily U.S. bombing and killing of Afghanis attending weddings, classes, funerals, or simply trying to survive shows how cruel and deadly this war is. It is directed against the same forces that the U.S. armed, financed, and helped bring to power.

Why is the U.S. at war against Afghanistan? Its primary purpose is to secure control of a pipeline across that country. (See the 1998 statement submitted to Congress by the Union Oil Company of California, which later merged with Chevron, stressing the need to build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan. And note Dick Cheney’s 1998 statement made when he was chief executive of a major oil services company: “I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian,” which led the Guardian newspaper to remark, “But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route that would make both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan.”)

The March 21 demonstration will also denounce the expansion of the war into Pakistan and the sanctions and threats of military action against Iran. It will also call for the end to U.S. support for the continued occupation of Palestine.

The National Assembly

From its inception, the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations has called for united antiwar demonstrations this spring. We urge the entire movement to unite now around the March 21 actions and we will do everything possible to make this unity a reality. The civil rights, union, anti-Vietnam War, women’s liberation and gay rights movements would not have achieved victories without having built truly massive movements that were able to organize repeated and powerful independent mobilizations in the streets.

Why the demonstration in Washington? Because it is the seat of power, where foreign and domestic policies are decided, where money for war is allocated, and bailouts of the banking industry and corporate rich are given away.

Join us in mobilizing the largest possible outpouring of antiwar opposition built by a united movement on March 21. Let’s march and continue to march until all U.S. forces come home, U.S. bases are dismantled, and the sovereign people of the world have the right to control their own resources and determine their own futures.

To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, please click here.

To send a contribution to support the National Assembly’s work, please click here.

For more information, please visit the National Assembly’s website at www.natassembly.org or writenatassembly@aol.com or call 216-736-4704.

I remember sitting in my living room, six years ago, watching the “Leader of the Free World” announcing that the United States military had just embarked in “shock and awe” against the country of Iraq.
The images made me physically ill, as they had 12 years before when the criminal’s criminal father was bombarding Iraq.

I was also personally sick with fear as my family had “skin in the game,” our son/brother, Casey. On that night, Casey’s life clock starting ticking down: He had exactly one year and 15 days to live from “shocking and awful.”

Six years and over a million lives later, our military is still shamefully in Iraq. Our “Peace President” has created no positive change there and is in fact extending the length of the deployment of “combat troops.” The country has been ethnically cleansed. Violence is down because everyone there is either dead, displaced or too poor, wounded or frightened to move let alone continue fighting. Violence is down, but not out, and you can bet there will be a strong US military presence in Iraq until every last drop of oil has fallen into the hands of foreign oil companies.

What about Afghanistan? When will the “peace movement” begin to protest the anniversary (Oct. 7, 2001) of the invasion of that war-torn country? When will we begin saying “illegal and immoral” in connection with Afghanistan and start mourning the dead there? Maybe when US casualties begin to ratchet up as Obama surges US troop presence there? Obama is sending incursions farther and farther into Pakistan every day. From one “dumb war” to another “dumb war,” and the cycle of death will never end for we in the Robbed Class or the poor innocents of that region.

The economic collapse is a very worrisome and immediate problem to so many of us, but we need to remember that the Military Industrial Robber Class Complex is the reason we are in this current crisis and the economic costs of the occupations cannot and must not be separated from the human cost. Whose life clock is ticking away today? How can we allow yet another year to pass?

Every year I say that this will be our last…I don’t believe that anymore. I believe that a very few of us will be demonstrating against these “wars” for years and every year that goes by, fewer of us will be out.

It is our shame that we as a nation complacently sit by and allow the audacity of the atrocities of empire to continue in our names.

Our demands must be the same with the Obama regime as it was with the Bush regime: Troops home completely and immediately. Leave cowardice and compromise to the politicians: we in the movement must never compromise or sell out the values of peace with justice. Or if we have already sold-out, we must buy-back…we need everyone!

Many have already given up or have been co-opted by the Democratic Party or the false specter of “hope.” Most have never even protested other than bitching on blogs or yelling at the TV when Bush or Cheney came on spewing their lies (Cheney is still at it).

Some will never give up. Here’s to you! I honor your commitment to peace, no matter who is the current warmonger occupying the Evil Office (oops, I sorta meant “Oval Office”)

Hasta la victoria, siempre!

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies—or else? The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today, I wept as my forehead was pressed against the wall of glass partitioning me and other National Civil Rights’ Museum goers from the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, lie after he was shot down by an assassin’s bullet on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tn. I wept for perhaps the greatest American civil rights’ leader, but also for the man who had begun (against the wishes of many of his colleagues) to vigorously not only speak out against the murder in Vietnam, but also strenuously against militarism, which he called in his Building the Beloved Community (which I feel is King’s opus) speech delivered at Riverside Church in NYC exactly one year before his death: one of the greatest of “evils” along with racism and poverty.

I also wept for my son, Casey, who was killed on the same day (April 4th) 36 years later and thousands of miles away. Dr. King and Casey were killed by the same evils: militarism, racism and poverty. Casey was killed by the racism of genocide against the Iraqi people; obviously gross militarism that led our nation to Iraq in the first place; and the poverty of being from a working class family that couldn’t afford to send him to university. All of these factors combined also, obviously, killed Dr. King.

However, I also wept for Oscar Grant, 22 year-old, black father, who was murdered in cold blood as a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop cowardly shot him in the back as he lie face down on the concrete as he pled for his life. I wept for Oscar’s friends and family and prayed for justice for his killing.

I wept for the innocent babies and children in Gaza who are being slaughtered by the unholy military alliance of the US and Israel and I wept for the mothers of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I wept for the people of color in New Orleans, my own community, San Francisco, and many communities around this nation who are facing the racist displacement of gentrification and pollution and are losing their homes due to foreclosure and eviction and for our immigrant workers who are being demonized because they need to take care of their families.

I wept that next week, homophobe and hate monger, Richard Warren will be spewing his filthy prayer at Obama’s inauguration AND at the sacred place where Dr. King was killed.

Finally, I wept for Dr. King’s legacy. Although he was hopeful after the Civil Rights’ Law was passed in 1964 that the US would see a “negro” elected to the highest office in the world within “40 years,” I don’t see Obama as the fulfillment of any Dr. King legacy of non-violent, systemic change.

Although I think it’s about time that a person of color was elected to the Presidency and understand the black community’s euphoria over his election, Obama has proven to be a sell-out in opposition to King’s legacy, not a fulfillment.

Besides filling his cabinet with militarists and members of the white establishment, he has selected very few persons of color. His support for a trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street shows that he has sold out himself, and the nation’s poor to be a tool of the bankers.

Obama’s devotion to war (“I am not against war, I am against dumb wars”) is not only demonstrated by his words, but by his actions, as well. While pledging to withdraw “combat troops” from Iraq, he also promises to dramatically increase troop level in Afghanistan and also increase overall troop levels by almost 100,000 warm bodies. Obama recognizes Israel’s right to “defend” itself by bombing the prisoners of Gaza.

I have heard reports from all over the nation that during MLK, Jr. day parades, the military sends tanks and recruiters hoping to fill its human coffers with recruits from our poorest of communities. Where do we think the 100,000 troops are going to come from? Are the war profiteers, bankers and Democrats going to start encouraging their children and grandchildren to enlist to fight Obama’s wars?

Larry Pinkney, Black Panther and columnist for the Black Commentator, (and who editorially scolded me and my cohorts for targeting, Rep. John Conyers in July 2007), says this in his article entitled: Barack Obama and the Euphoria of Madness:

Many Black Americans and our Brown and Red sisters and brothers will, I fear, come to be deeply disappointed in Barack Obama, once he demonstrates who he really is. There will be no peace or justice under an Obama Presidency, should such come to pass. Even the majority of white Americans, with the exception of the corporate liberals and conservatives, may yet come to realize that Obama’s interests are corporate interests; they are not the needs and interests of everyday people, who represent the overwhelming majority of this nation and the world.

Despite the upcoming inauguration (coronation spectacle, costing millions of dollars) of the first black president, I submit that Dr. King’s legacy is far from being fulfilled, in fact, during the Bush years many may say, we have slid backwards in human rights, in general. As I walked back to my hotel from the museum in the freezing Memphis afternoon, I reflected on the legacy of Dr. King that I personally feel is so intertwined with Casey’s.

To visit the place where Dr. King was shot on the day of his birth was holy to me and I think we should use this time to renew our commitment to the struggle for peace, but not only peace: peace with justice. As Dr. King once said: “We may have all come on different ships, but we are all on the same boat now.”

We haven’t yet reached that mountaintop and we can’t stop climbing until we do.

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am here today because if the U.S. antiwar movement does not embrace fully and passionately the cause of ending U.S. backing for the murderous assault on Gaza, we will never succeed in ending ANY of the U.S. military adventures in the Middle East. Solidarity with the victims of U.S.-backed aggression in Gaza, and solidarity with YOU, is the most important task facing the antiwar movement today.
To whom can we look to end the barbaric attacks on the refugee camp called Gaza?

Not the president and certainly not the Congress.

Yesterday the U.S. Congress voted to openly celebrate their support for the horrific and criminal massacres carried out in Gaza. Read the resolutions– they CHEERED the murderous effectiveness of the army of their most valued proxy in the Middle East They CELEBRATED the carnage wrought by their military gifts to Israel–the F-16s, the helicopters, the munitions.

While the whole world mourned the loss of innocent life in GAZA, the U.S. government instead theatrically APPLAUDED the mowing down of nearly 1000 starving, encircled, and utterly trapped civilians. And with Orwellian language, they designated the colonizer’s methods as self-defense. They perversely defined a brutally occupied people as the aggressor and instigator of war.

Congress uses this double speak for the same reason they went along with the lie of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In the end, it is all about the same thing. It is all about the willingness of the U.S. government to use the bloodiest means to create a Middle East and Central Asia where Arab and Afghani self-determination, where national sovereignty, is a thing of the past. Where the United States has control over energy resources at any human cost.

That is why they cannot stand the proud and defiant people of Palestine. Their unwillingness to bend in the face of attack makes the Gazans a giant obstacle to U.S. war aims in the greater Middle East. Their fight is our fight.
We say NO to U.S. backed aggression against the people of Gaza.

The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is so honored and grateful to be here today with the movement to end the siege of Gaza and to defend the right of Palestinians to self -determination. This movement to defend the people of Gaza from the U.S.-backed Israeli invasion is opening a new stage in U.S. politics. YOU are opening a new stage in U.S. politics. A stage where those from the Palestine solidarity movement and those who have been active to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will come together as a powerful force to end the U.S.-Israeli military adventure in the Middle East.

A force independent of the war -making political parties in Congress. A force that can grow exponentially due to our unity. A force that can attract millions because we remain visible in the streets. A force that will first be able to manifest itself on March 21 here in DC and bring us a much closer to ending U.S. support for the occupation of Palestine. To ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. To getting money for jobs, pensions, housing, healthcare, not for wars, occupations, and corporate bailouts.
Let us pledge to take the next weeks, to use every day, to use every hour, to use every minute between now and March 21 to fight together to take the truth about Gaza, the truth about Iraq, the truth about Afghanistan to the millions of Americans not yet active in the struggle.

Let Gaza Live

Out Now