UNITED STATES war drums are beating louder and louder

We are reprinting herewith excerpts from the editorial of the May 2019 issue of The Organizer, published in the United States by supporters of the campaigns of the International Workers Committee Against War and Exploitation, For the Workers International (IWC).

As part of a mounting series of U.S. provocations against Iran, the U.S. State Department has ordered all « non-critical government employees » to leave Iraq on the grounds that, « U.S. intelligence has learned that Iran is planning strikes on U.S. forces in Iraq. » 

These statements come shortly after the U.S. government deployed four B-52 bombers and the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier-strike group to the Persian Gulf amid « indications that Iran was transporting short-range ballistic missiles to the region ». 

This declaration was accompanied by an announcement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the United States is readying to send 120,000 troops to the region to « counter Iran’s terrorist plans. » This is roughly the same number of U.S. troops that were initially sent to Iraq in the name of preventing the regime of Saddam Hussein from deploying his « weapons of mass destruction » against the United States and its allies — a total lie. 

A Trump administration official told The New York Times (May 14) on condition of anonymity that National Security Advisor John Bolton, who supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq and had tried to push George W. Bush to take military action against Iran, « wants to goad Iran into taking action against American forces, thus justifying a military response. » The U.S. war buildup has the strong backing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

The bipartisan war against the working class here at home also has been brutal. In his 2020 budget, Trump is calling for $750 billion in Pentagon spending. Democrats have countered with only a slightly lesser amount: $733 billion. Both amounts are record-high military budgets. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has continually slammed single-payer healthcare for having « too high a price tag » while she remains silent on the skyrocketing war budget. 

Gabriel Torres, a professor of Spanish at Los Rios Community College in Sacramento, Calif., and a member of the California Federation of Teachers, explained in an interview with The Organizer: « It is not possible to fund human needs here at home, beginning with quality public education, if you don’t make drastic cuts to the war budget, which makes up about 60% of the yearly budget, » Torres stated. « But the Democrats, with only a few exceptions that can be counted on one hand, are not opposing the war buildup. They are one of the twin parties of war, funded by the military-industrial complex and beholden to Wall Street. » 

Torres continued, « The fundamental problem is that our trade union movement is attached at the hip to the Democratic Party; you can’t even bring up this issue at our union meetings. That is why our main task as class-struggle militants is to fight for our unions to break with the Democrats and build their own workers’ party in alliance with the Black and Latino community organizations and activists. » 

Building mass united-front actions against the U.S. wars abroad, with ever-growing participation by the labor movement, is the order of the day.  

Washington: the police have entered the Venezuela embassy! 
Breaking news – Washington police have entered the Venezuela embassy to arrest four anti-war activists protecting the building, with the consent of the Venezuelan government, from a takeover by the Guaidó usurpers, thereby violating the sovereignty of Venezuela, as well as international law and the laws of the United States. An urgent call for a demonstration has been issued for Saturday the 18th of May, in Washington.