kill. We know this is a lie! But controlling are billboards in San Francisco with pictures our minds is part of their game plan for war. ofHitler and Hussein saying "Never Again." That's why every day we now see generals on The New York Times prints a cartoon enTV telling us what we should think. That's titled "The Descent of Man" showing Clark why there's almost complete censorship, Gable on one end, dien apes, snakes and why they refuse to show us pictures of their finally Hussein on die other. Hussein is destruction, and refuse to discuss casualties. being made out to be evil incarnate just as We've been primed for this war. They've Noriega was before him. They're even airbeen planning it since they lost Vietnam. brushing his mustache to make him look First it was Grenada and Panama. We still more like Hider! The demoiiization of Hussein is only one don't know what happened in Panama, how many diousands were killed, how many part of the campaign. The level of violence wounded and left homeless. We've been against Arab people in die U.S. has been primed by over twenty years of anti-Arab rising. In the first two weeks of die war, there racism, racism that's so deeply embedded were 24 reported incidents of violence against diat nobody thinks it odd when every major individuals and/or stores owned by Arabnewspaper prints stereotypic racist cartoons Americans in San Francisco alone. The FBI of Arabs, portraying diem eidier as sleazy, continues to interrogate Arab-Americans sheiks or terrorists. regarding their political affiliations and internment camps are being prepared in LouiRacist to the Core siana, if things get "too bad." We've been so continuously lied to about Of course, die racism abroad only mirrors what is really going on in the Middle East diat at home. Estimates are diat 40 percent diat our perceptions of what is right and of die troops in die Gulf are people of color; wrong can only be based on propaganda. 83 percent of die troops from Chicago are Take die issue of Israel and the Palestinians. Black and Latino. Twenty diousand Puerto We're taught diat Palestinians = terrorists, Ricans are currendy serving in the Gulf, out who deserve what diey get. And when war of a total Puerto Rican population of four breaks out, the media doesn't diink it im- million! Forty-three percent of Africanportant to cover the Israeli-instituted curfew American families have relatives in the Gulf, in the West Bank and Gaza. There is no and there are more Latinos fighting "for mention of the resulting massive unemploy- Kuwait" than Kuwaitis! We now have a ment, food shortages, deadis from inadequate society where the only place people of color healthcare or people getting shot for breaking can find a decent job is in die military. die curfew. We do hear about the SCUDs Widi military needs coming first and hitting Israeli civilians. On the subject of foremost diere's less money dian ever for Iraqi deadis and Palestinian suffering the human needs at home. Black men in Harlem media is almost silent. We're taught to value today have a lower life expectancy than men some lives over others. in Bangladesh. The overall Black life expectIt's clear diat we live in a society which ancy has fallen precipitously. Black infant worships death instead of life. How else can mortality is twice diat of whites. Aldiough we look at die fact diat billions of dollars and die U.S. ranks first in military spending, huge amounts of human brain power and twelve other countries have lower maternal creativity are going into creating "smart" mortality rates and twenty are lower in child bombs, bombs diat can turn corners and hit mortality (under 5 yrs). Healdicare, housdieir targets — and yet we can't find a cure ing, education, childcare and all basic social for AIDS, or get safe birth control or deal services are being pared to die bone. The widi die fact that half die world's population number of homeless on the streets is rising. The rise of racist violence goes hand in hand widi war. So does macho talk about "bombing this place and killing those people." In this atmosphere of violence, women are more often than not the victims. The relationship between war and violence against women is well documented. Rape has always been used to terrorize and control during wartime. It's also a way for men at home to let out their aggression. Rape crisis hot-lines have reported a 10-to20 percent increase in calls since the war began. Violence against lesbians and gay men is also up. Women are very important to die war effort. Throughout history women have been used to build up patriotism. Generations of mothers, sisters, and daughters have "sent their men off to war," keeping die home fires burning. Now we see it all again,
Keeping the Home Fires Burning
The war in the Gulf is also a war at home, fought especially against people of color.
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On January 19th and January 26th, hundreds of thou D.C., and San Francisco to protest the U.S. war in di
How did Iraq's invasion of Kuwait threaten the U.S.?
companies have reaped fantastic profits by insuring that the industrialized world runs on this polluting, non-renewable resource. Just as the environment of the Gulf is a casualty of diis war, the global environment is held hostage to these companies' greed for profits. At the same time as Bush — a Texas oil man —was raising the specter of long gas lines and an Iraqi stranglehold over our economy, he was submitting a national energy program that deepens U.S. dependence on oil and subjects nadve peoples' land and fragile ecosystems to destructive exploration and drilling.
Kuwait is the epitome of a system tailormade by British and U.S. oil companies. The richest countries in OPEC — Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates — are sparsely populated. They need the U.S. military to defend themselves from the majority of Arab people who feel these resources should be used for die This picture of bomb damage in a residential neighborhood of Al Nasariya, Iraq, refutes Bush's claims benefit of all. In return, that Iraqi civilians are not the targets of U.S. bombs. Perhaps this is why such images are so rarely seen the sheiks and emirs in the U.S. media. pour their profits back economically by the very countries we destroyed in into the U.S. and British economies in the form of World War II — Germany and Japan. And the investments and purchases of luxury goods. Arab nationalism — the desire for Arab unity and "Vietnam syndrome" limited the direct use of military force—theU.S. trump card—to maintain U.S. control of their resources — threatens this set-tip. Since the 1950s, the U.S. has gone out of its way to demonize
The war against Iraq is not about jobs, freedom or stopping aggression by a new Hitler. Rhetoric aside, the essence of Bush's "New World Order" is die projection of U.S. military might to maintain U.S. domination. Since Vietnam, the U.S. economic position in the world has been eroding. We have been challenged
Why is the U.S. fighting this war?
Behind the Lines
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and installed a r ayear before the "Operation Jus Panama. Althou buried the trudi (just as they are 3-4,000 Panam of poor residen buried in mass
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•:;dbru i.ln . ixtra,- Western • adM liave slifes; b^ri -there:, to • : defend the Ernir. When the^SujiaPiisgijtie in Iraq was-' overthrown -lal 958 . •tliei U:Si and Biidsli seat-troops.- to. , •Lebanon and lord'aa. tetprevsat- die spread; -of .riatbnalKt ' •':.iferest.;Amaj6r concern was tiipiiireat to, Kuwaiti oil andj fCav^arcrmvestmenrs'in the UE'^iiclrpfepped ep the-'; ; 'value of British sterling:oii: die vporia-ntarfcet. : Thesesame, . factors operate today. .-'-"; : .- : : : .-' \J^,'-'.'.7^y..-'"
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Inside Kuwait
The U.S. is a petroleum-based economy. U.S. oil
Does the U.S. need Mideast oil?
closer to using this new high tech war machine. Panama and Grenada were the first test runs. Now in Saddam Hussein the U.S. has found the target of opportunity. The war against Iraq is a way to reassert the fundamental role of U.S. as the foremost military power in die world. The U.S. is in the Middle East because oil = power. With two-thirds of the world's most strategic commodity reserves — petroleum — located in this part of the world, control of the Middle East has been a strategic objective of die U.S. since World War II. Now, after years of drooling for a chance to put U.S. troops and bases directly in die area, the U.S. is destroying a region in order to rebuild it in its image. They hope the map of die Middle East will be redrawn in a way diat guarantees U.S. control well into die next century.
plus military build-up. Each year has brought US a step
U.^. written on, debts to the Gulf st who voted agains diplomat diat "di
Kuwait was robbing Aggression the U.S. Has Su Iraq blind. They had stolen $2.8 billion worth of Iraqi oil by "slantdrilling" in the huge Indfenesl Rumaila oil field which " straddles the Iraq-Kuwait border. It was also : • £%pccupatK)a:of KaMthia ^ exceeding the oil production quotas agreed •'co|isi;i|Gii;hs engageiBea/to to in OPEC, driving down the price of oil. Every drop of a dollar in ::::|&etliaadMg;::aiid the price of a barrel of oil ' : the' dea meant an annual loss of one billion dollars to Iraq. This cost Iraq $16.5 billion in 1990. After World War I, the British arbitrarily set you'll ever cast" boundaries between Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. U.S. aid promise These borders were intentionally drawn to deny Iraq access to the Gulf, dius limiting its ability to become Who is Sad an economic power in die region. For years Iraq has Hussein is a r been disputing Kuwaiti ownership of two small is- territorial ambitio lands in the Gulf which Iraq needed to secure its oil the preeminent p transport facilities. Negotiations over diese islands, to involve his cou and the economic issues above, had broken down in resulting in hund die weeks before die Iraqi invasion. the devastation o He used nerve ga Isn't the U.S. turning back "naked the Kurdish natio aggression?" ern Iraq. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was an act of aggression. Yet Hussein is The use of force cannot be an acceptable way of ally in the region, settling disputes between countries or advancing the the butchers who political and economic hegemony of one country Guatemala and over another. But for the U.S. to pose as the moral to support. champion of small countries against foreign aggressors is bald hypocrisy. The U.S. supports (and uses) How did Ira aggression when it's in its interests to do so, and military? Iraq is a classic condemns those forms of aggression which challenge on in the internat it. (For some examples, see sidebar.) And what about aggression by the U.S. directly? In Germany and the 1983, die 82nd Airborne invaded the island of with sophisticate Grenada, overthrew the progressive government there ons, including ne
What were Iraq's problems with Kuwait?
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How do Israel and the Palestinians fit into the picture? Why the linking of
allows a handful of feudal sheiks to live in luxury, while Arab countries are robbed of desperately needed capital for development. Support for Hussein comes from the Arab poor who do the menial work of the oil kingdoms. Finally, Hussein gets support for his stand in support of Palestine and against Israel.
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fight for Iraq? Hussein's support stems from diree factors. First, a legacy of Western colonialism and intervention since the 1800s has created an enormous resentment of Europe and theU.S. among Arab people. Arabs rightly blame many of the current conflicts in the region on territorial and political divisions imposed by Britain after World War I. Secondly, Arab nationalists have long opposed the economic system which
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Poverty, Wealth, and Intervention
Right now, despite military setbacks, Hussein's prestige is riding higher than ever in the Arab world. He is the first Arab leader since Nasser to stand up to the U.S., NATO, Israel and the reactionary Arab governments. What does it mean that Jordan's King Hussein, a formerly compliant U.S. puppet, has had to declare his support for Iraq; that polls in Iran, which lost a million of its people in a war with Iraq, show widespread support for Hussein; and that 100,000 Pakistanis have volunteered to
Why is Hussein so among Arab people?
Not a single expert has actually asserted that Iraq possesses a nuclear weapon. Most estimate that it would take five to ten years for Iraq to develop one. The only country in the Middle East which has nuclear weapons is Israel with up to 100 warheads. The only country in the world to ever use a nuclear weapon is the U.S., which dropped atomic bombs on civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Throughout the first weeks of the war, U.S. commanders advised Bush to explode tactical nuclear weapons over Baghdad in order to disrupt Iraq's communications systems. The real threat of nuclear weapons in this war comes from Israel and die U.S.
What about his nuclear threat?
invaded Kuwait. The Reagan and Bush administrations saw a strong Iraq as a way to prevent Islamic fundamentalists in Iran from controlling the region.
ISRAEL W GAZA
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Oil Reserves 1.5 billion barrels
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: Western; colonialism tes erected a map; of tise Middle EDS! morked by great disparities, A fev sparsely jwpolated Muntries, such as Kuwait, cantroE -enormous wealth and resources—wiiife the mojonfy of Arob ^people live in relative po!/eriyf as in Iraq mi Egypt. Israel's v/ealth comes in large: port from !ls role as an international arms merchant.
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Remember the "Silent Majority" Before the war actually began, countless
under fierce attack. Four days after die war began, Bush declared January 20, the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, "Sanctity of Life Day." Utah used the occasion to pass the strictest anti-abortion law ever. No woman should have to choose the military as her only way to an education or less oppressive life.
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11
ating fully with the Bush administration. But none of this should either intimidate us or silence us. What's amazing is not how many people are for the war, but how many are against it so soon. Look around. There are peace symbols and anti-war posters everywhere. So we shouldn't let ourselves get discouraged. Instead we just have to continue building our movement, realizing that we are joined by literally millions in this country and around the world who hate this war
12
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government in El Salvador. While troops old wor It's e were massing in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. was stepping up counterinsurgency in die Phil- sive mil ippines guaranteeing that U.S. military bases to be fr would remain there. South Africa has used never f the opportunity to demand that sanctions must k against apartheid be dropped. These are not people a series of unrelated decisions, but rather to belie part and parcel of Bush's New World Order what w that looks suspiciously very much like the stop thi
Double the amount budgeted for Head Start programs
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4,5 million uninsured pregnant women and for children up to the age of 6
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Restore the $3.5 billion cut from
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No War No Way
THE Fl
Fund all environmental rerrtediql .ore! \vgsf ^management pro-.
ousing f mom par lor iglf o mita bfttfoj. people
• PO Box 747 Allston, MA02134
• Box 253, 2520 N. Lincoln Chicago, IL 60614 • PO Box 18044 Atlanta, GA 30316
From the Gulf to El Salvador
We can't let them wage this war without paying a price at home. The press will try to divide us. They will try to scare and threaten us. None of these tactics should deter us from our basic goal of stopping the war and creating a more humane and non-racist society here at home.
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The U.S. intends for Hussein to fall, but the consequences are unpredictable. In the power vacuum that remains, Iraq could dissolve into civil war, becoming another Lebanon. This could lead to a military occupation by the U.S., Turkey, and Syria — each of which is greedily eyeing portions of Iraq for themselves. And despite years of
What does the U.S. plan after the war?
control, imce ivo/, ovci uj.uuu Israelis have settled on the West Bank and die Israeli government has taken over more than 50 percent of the land. They are currendy encouraging the immigration of up to one million Soviet Jews (who ironically are being denied entry to the U.S.). Although Israel has maintained that die comparison with Kuwait is irrelevant, the UN has issued over 140 resolutions since 1967 condemning Israeli occupation and human rights violations and demanding the protection of Palestinian rights and an end to the occupation. The U.S. has vetoed many of these resolutions, and continues to support die occupation with $3 billion a year. The U.S. bristles at any mention of linkage because, along with Israeli leaders, it has consistently opposed an international conference on Palestine — the key demand of the Palestinian movement. to head talism, t Iran em Gulf re Plans entire p the Mid envisio region i regional of NAT presenc East de wealthy econom control. regions insure t Arab so U.S. to reap e tive war cisco alr ruling f compan tracts to Of c start thi victims. there ro state. T recoloni
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Plus 10% postage and handling on all orders. Total Amount Enclosed
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From the very beginning, the conflict in the Middle East should have and could have been settled through negotiations by die people who live in the region. We must press for an immediate cease-fire and international conference that will address all issues in the region. These include the conflict between Kuwait and Iraq, the question of a Palestinian homeland, die quesdon of the Kurdish people, and the situation in Lebanon. We want self-determination for all people in the Middle East. George Bush has made a point that there will be no linkage of issues in the setdement of the crisis of the Gulf. He claims that there is no relationship between Kuwait and Palestine, between Lebanon and Iraq. Although it might sound rhetorical, all these issues are inextricably linked by the policies of U.S. imperialism, which is determined to maintain its grip on the world. That's why die same day diat war started in the Gulf, Bush ordered that aid be restored to the ARENA
NO WAR, NO WAY is a special anti-war supplement of Breakthrough, the political journal of Prairie Fire Organizing Committee and is produced by the John Brown Education Fund, 220 9th St. #443, San Francisco, CA 94103. You can contact PFOCat: »PO Box 14422 San Francisco, CA 94114 (415)330-5310
opposed going to war. The newspapers were very sympathetic to the protests. Once the bombs began to fall it was a whole different story. Instead die media tried to paint die anti-war movement as small and ineffective, representing only a "fringe" of society. They've contrasted it again and again with die movement against die war in Vietnam, which they claim was always massive and always effective. This is anodier concerted propaganda game to keep people quiet and off the streets. At the beginning ofVietnam j ust as in the beginning of most wars, the vast majority of people in the U.S. were for the war. Even during the height of the anti-war movement, Nixon ordered bombing raids on Laos and Cambodia. In 1972, he was reelected by a stunning majority against McGovern, a peace candidate. This country likes quick results, but building a vast antiVietnam war movement took long years of patient, hard work. Eventually it became one of the main factors in bringing ground troops home in 1973, and die ultimate end of the war in 1975. Now we see American flags flying everywhere we look. From sporting events to shopping malls to die schools to die movies, die government's pulled out all the stops to get die American people behind diis war. The media has been muzzled and is cooper-