EDITORIAL
U.S. Out of Iraq—Now!

Jan 16, 2006

The only thing that the new year brought to Iraq is more death and casualties. The U.S. news reported that at least 200 Iraqis were killed in the first week of January.

That first week was also bloody for U.S. soldiers. A dozen more U.S. troops were killed. Then over the weekend, a U.S. helicopter crashed, killing all 12 U.S. soldiers. Another five Marines on patrols were also killed.

Yet, Bush continues to insist that things in Iraq are getting better. As proof, he points to the three elections in Iraq that the U.S. organized over the last year. The last one, supposedly to elect a legislature, took place on December 15.

Of course, during each election, the U.S. media presented us pictures of supposedly smiling Iraqis lining up to vote and then exiting the polls wagging their finger covered in purple ink. The politicians and news commentators insisted that the U.S. was “building democracy” and “reconstructing Iraq.” These changes were supposed to reduce the warfare and casualties.

What lies! The U.S. military is dropping five times more bombs than a year ago. At the same time, U.S. troops are ordered to invade people’s homes, drag thousands and thousands of people into prisons and torture chambers. Fearful because they are surrounded by a hostile population, the U.S. troops shoot people down for the slightest reason. In less than three years, over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed, and hundreds of thousands more have been wounded, with much of the country laid to waste.

All the talk in this country about elections and democracy is nothing but a fraud and a fake. It’s like all the stories about weapons of mass destruction, used as an excuse to invade the country.

It is a cover to hide the real reason for the war: to increase U.S. imperial domination in the Middle East and central Asia, with their vast and rich energy resources, especially oil. It is to further secure the U.S. position as the number one economic and military superpower.

“We have to stay the course in Iraq. We can’t cut and run,” says Bush over and over again. And not just Bush. The Democratic Party leaders claim to criticize Bush. But Clinton, Reid, Kerry, and Emmanuel, all support the war, just like they did from the start.

Already more than 2,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed, with another 16,000 seriously wounded. Over five billion dollars a month of our hard-earned tax dollars is being used to destroy the people of Iraq and their country, and to enrich the big military contractors at the same time.

Increasingly, the people in this country are not buying it. Opinion polls show that 60% of the people believe that Bush is lying, and they do not support the war. The U.S. soldiers are saying the same thing, and they are saying it with their feet. More and more soldiers are leaving the military the first chance they get. At the same time, recruitment is down. The military is having a harder time replacing those who leave. It is having a harder time getting new cannon fodder. And that is making it harder for the U.S. military to wage that war. There are soldiers and their families who are opposing this war, openly.

This is the beginning. And all of these activities can pave the way for bigger mobilizations.