Sep 11, 2001 -- The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) joins people around the world in mourning the civilians killed today in attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Their deaths are as lamentable and were as preventable as the deaths of millions of children who die every year of starvation and disease, victims of militarism and imperialism.
These attacks could not have been prevented by beefing up the Amerikan military and espionage apparatus any more than it already has been. Nor can future deadly attacks be prevented by carrying out reprisal bombings, assassinating putative "terrorists," invading so-called "rogue states," or cracking down on civil rights at home. President Bush's tired old idea of "peace through strength" is bankrupt. In all history, one country has been more powerful than others. That has never stopped war from happening.
These attacks did not happen because former President Clinton was "soft" and "dismantled America's military," as the quasi-fascist yahoos are already yalping. Clinton's international military policy was very aggressive, bombing water-treatment plants in Iraq, aspirin factories in Sudan, bridges in Yugoslavia, and sending troops across the globe, from Albania to Somalia -- actions which increased international anger against the united $tates. Republicans even made Clinton's "activist" military policies an issue in the last election.
Both Democrats and Republicans represent a class of people that profits from world war. Therefore they are afraid to work aggressively for long-range peace. Technical, military approaches to peace and security are doomed to fail. It's time to break with old thinking to get at the root causes of humyn conflict -- production for profit, the class system, conflicts over land etc. These can only be addressed by communism, as difficult as it will be to achieve.
In immediate response to the attack, President George Bush said "freedom was attacked this morning, and freedom will be defended." Yet the united $tates has run roughshod over the freedom of peoples worldwide for well over 100 years. It carried out a genocidal war in the Philippines at the end of the 19th century. It backed an Indonesian coup which killed ca. one million in the middle of the twentieth century. Its futile aggression in southeast Asia -- carried out in the name of "peace" and "freedom" -- killed more than three million.
Even today, the united $tates backs sanctions against Iraq which have killed perhaps millions of children. It supplies and tacitly supports Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory, such as the bombing of a refugee camp outside Jenin yesterday. It bombs countries who refuse to toe the u.$. line. It supports low-intensity warfare to keep corrupt and brutal regimes in power, from Columbia to the Philippines to Turkey. Military "accidents" -- from the bombing of the Chinese embassy to the sinking of the Ehime Maru -- are regular occurrences.
The list of crimes is practically without limit.
We cannot blame the oppressed for attacking the u.$. military and the institutions of Amerikan imperialism, any more than we can blame George Washington for attacking the British, or Nat Turner for attacking slaveholders, or Mao Zedong for attacking the Japanese invaders. Instead, we should work toward a world with the causes of war removed. Public opinion polls show that Amerikans already know that. It is time that they act. They must act ferociously as never before in history, because tolerating even a slight but constant cause of war may mean the end of the humyn species. The Middle East alone and its economic conflicts are reason enough for a global dictatorship of the proletariat.
Even a one percent annual chance of nuclear or biological war destruction caused by capitalist aggressiveness or "greed" as the people call it should not be tolerated by the proletariat. That's like playing Russian Roulette with 100 chambers and one bullet. After 50 turns the chance of survival is only 60.5%. In other words, a seemingly small one percent annual chance of world war means eventual doom. After 100 years or turns of Russian Roulette, the chances of survival are only 36.6%. After 200 years, survival has only a 13.4% chance.
For the sake of the millions of victims of capitalism and imperialism, for the sake of the future generations of the humyn species, we must sweep away this vile, oppressive, warlike system!
Contact MIM by writing mim3@mim.org