Iraq

By Norm Dixon

September 11, 2002 -- In the week before the first anniversary of the devastating September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, TV networks aired a seemingly never-ending string of ``special events'' featuring ``exclusive'' or ``never before seen'' footage of the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) and its aftermath. People around the world again experienced the horror, anger and tragedy of that terrible day, when almost 3000 working people were murdered.

Culminating on the anniversary of the day itself, thousands of journalists and TV presenters from across the globe will converge at ``ground zero'' in New York for ``remembrance and reflection''. Solemn ceremonies will be telecast and patriotic speeches by top US politicians broadcast, restating Washington's determination to pursue its ``war on terrorism''.

But by the end of the 9/11 anniversary hoopla, after the thousands of hours of TV time and the column-kilometres published in the world's newspapers and magazines, you can be sure that the most glaring aspect of the post-9/11 period will have remained unmentionable by all but the most honest commentators: that Washington's ``war on terrorism'' is a cynical fraud.

By Norm Dixon

May 5, 2004 -- Even while working people were still coming to terms with the shock of witnessing the unimaginable and traumatic collapse of the World Trade Center, top US officials were describing this mass-murder of 3000 people as “an opportunity”, recent books by government “insiders” and Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward have revealed.

As the country went into mourning, Bush's war cabinet quickly began to coolly debate just how soon it could get away with shifting the enemy in its coming “war on terrorism” to Iraq, a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks.

In the days that followed September 11, 2001, the US rulers immediately recognised that those awful acts of mass murder had provided them with a golden opportunity to achieve the US capitalist ruling class' long-held objective of unchallenged world domination — the “American century” it predicted was at hand at the end of World War II.

`Topic A'

In January, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill was published. O'Neill, a former CEO of the giant Alcoa corporation, was Bush's treasury secretary until December 2002, when he was sacked.

By Rohan Pearce
"I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won’t last any longer than that”—US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, cnn, November 15, 2002.

“Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators”—US Vice President Dick Cheney, NBC’s Meet the Press, March 16, 2003.

By Lisa Macdonald

By Pip Hinman

Pip Hinman is a member of the Political Committee of the Democratic Socialist Party, and national coordinator of Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific. She was the national coordinator of the DSP's campaigning against the war, and much of the content of this article was first presented as a report to the DSP National Committee, April 26-27, 2003.

CONTENTS

The basis of mass dissent

Building an independent mass movement

Labor conservatism

Weak union response

Youth and the anti-war movement

Canberra Convergence

Oppose US-UN occupation

Can the movement rise again?

Notes

By Malik Miah, Barry Sheppard and Caroline Lund