In face of Bush’s preparations for what could become a long and bloody war, the most rapid military buildup in U.S. history and the mental preparations for a war coming from the media and the politicians, we must have a clear vision that doesn’t fall victim to the ideological pollution of Bush, Saddam Hussein, or any ruler including Gorbachev.

Nothing is more hypocritical than Bush’s claim that he sent troops to “protect victims of Iraqi aggression.” Far from opposing Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980, the U.S. helped supply Iraq with the latest military hardware.

The New York Times reported, “Iraq reached these heights with American acquiescence and sometimes its help. It benefitted from cooperation with U.S. intelligence agencies, oil sales to American refiners that helped finance its military… the Bush and Reagan administration declined to condemn Iraq’s use of poison gas against its own Kurdish citizens in 1988.”

Bush turned against Hussein only after he feared that rising oil prices would threaten the “new free market world” with a global recession.

Far from any concern for human life, what motivates Bush’s actions is protection of the commodity oil for production’s sake, production which is not meeting human needs.

Bush says he is protecting the “American way of life.” What is this American way of life? After 10 years of Reagan/Bush, it means a dramatic increase in poverty, homelessness, and hunger.

For youth it means a “two-tiered” system in the workplace and in education. For workers it means layoffs, union busting and worsening conditions of labor. For women and blacks it has meant more discrimination at work, in the health care systems and on the street.

The key to the solution in our own country lies in the masses of workers, blacks and other minorities, women and youth taking matters into our own hands and uprooting this racist, sexist, class-ridden society and creating a new human society where human life is more important than things like oil!

It is the crisis at home and the fear of revolt from within that motivates all the rulers.

The Middle Eastern masses in their struggles against their own rulers and U.S. imperialism in the form of workers strikes, women and youth fighting for self determination, the Kurds and other minorities fighting for National self determination must be seen as sources of the solution to the contradictions within the region.

Tom Rainey

NIU Alumnus