The people in Iraq want the U.S. occupation to end. The U.S. soldiers in Iraq want to come home. On Saturday, October 25, tens of thousands of people in the U.S., joined by delegations from countries around the world, will go back into the streets to demand End the Occupation, Bring the Troops Home Now! Under the banner, "The World Unites Against U.S. Militarism," the demonstration, marching from the Justice Department to the White House to the Pentagon, will also demand an end to the looting and destruction of social programs by the Bush Administration.

The Bush Administration lied to the people, to the Congress, and to the United Nations as it raced to wage war against Iraq. The Bush administration is now carrying out a cover up of its lies and deceptions.

Every day, people are dying as a consequence of this illegal occupation. Every day human misery expands in the drive for world Empire and corporate globalization. Every day, vital social programs that serve and protect working people in the U.S. are being destroyed as the Bush administration cynically manipulates the slogan of the "war on terrorism" to carry out the social transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. It has served as a public relations ploy for their Robin-Hood-in-reverse politics. Stopping Bush's war abroad and his war at home is a matter of life and death. None of us has the luxury of waiting. The time to act is now.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. GIs have been killed and maimed. As the anger of the Iraqi people will inevitably grow, the body count on both sides will sharply increase.

As the anti-war movement predicted, the Iraqi people view U.S. forces as colonial occupiers, not liberators. U.S. troops, frightened by the hostile environment and encouraged by the racist climate created by the military brass, are killing and being killed in a war that serves only the interests of U.S. oil monopolies and corporate elites - George W. Bush's real constituents. U.S. soldiers and their families are now realizing that high government officials, mostly millionaires who shuttle between corporate boardrooms and government posts, are using U.S. troops as a private security detachment for Corporate America's plunder of Iraq's oil riches.

The October 25 International March on Washington will include delegations invited from countries around the world whose banners will represent resistance to the threat posed by the Bush Administration's hyper-aggressive "preemptive war" strategy. The Bush Administration has also just won approval from Congress to proceed with the creation of a new generation of tactical nuclear weapons explicitly designed to be used in the Third World in coming conflicts. The march will demand an immediate end to this new nuclear arms race.

As we continue the movement in opposition to the occupation of Iraq, we must also oppose the daily threats against the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran, Korea, Cuba, the Philippines, Colombia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, and all others that are targets of the Bush administration.

The demonstration will be followed on October 26 by an assembly with international delegates from the global anti-war movement to assess and strategize challenging the Bush Administration's war drive and the component assault on civil rights and civil liberties taking place in many countries under the cloak of "national security" laws, including the Patriot Act in the U.S.

THE WAR AT HOME

The Bush administration will spend $2.7 trillion in a vast expansion of the U.S. military-industrial apparatus, while eliminating or severely cutting taxes for Corporate America and the one percent of the richest part of the United States population to the tune of $1 trillion. The administration is pursuing a calculated strategy to create a fiscal crisis inside the United States so that lawmakers will be compelled to cut or eliminate social programs for which there will no longer be funds.

Pentagon officials now admit that they intend for the U.S. to maintain at least 150,000 troops in Iraq for the "foreseeable future," while the cost of the U.S. war in and occupation of Iraq is nearly $4 billion a month, a "burn rate" that will also continue.

The government of the richest country in human history is spending more for war than any government in human history and has its troops stationed in more than 750 military installations and bases located in more than 130 countries all over the world. This is the means by which the Bush administration, the Pentagon and Corporate America are advancing the goal of Empire.

The rapid expansion of U.S. militarism under the Bush administration is not only a threat to the people of the world, it is a calculated assault on the standard of living and rights of working people. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz have a plan to destroy every social reform that has been achieved since the 1930s. What are they seeking to destroy or privatize? Social security, medicare, medicaid, public education, affirmative action, civil rights, women's rights, reproductive health, l/g/b/t rights, environmental protections, and any other programs or social rights that are perceived as either a restriction on corporate power and profits or are a focus of attack by the ultra-right's political program. Under the Bush Administration, the war at home has also meant a rise in attacks against communities of color. Police brutality against the African American and Latino communities in particular have escalated, from New York City to Ohio and across the country.

The October 25-26 weekend is also the second anniversary of the signing of the so-called Patriot Act authorizing political arrests, indefinite detentions and domestic spying. As the Bush administration - which only came to power due to massive racist disenfranchisement and voting fraud -- violates international law it has been systematically engaged in a campaign of division and repression in the United States including a wholesale assault on the Bill of Rights, institutionalization of racial profiling, and aggregation of near dictatorial powers to the Executive branch. The demonstration will be a political challenge to the attack on civil rights and civil liberties and the expansion of the system of repression in the U.S. and in countries around the world which have also adopted new repressive National Security laws.

The people of the world went into the streets unparalleled global mobilizations before the war started. On October 25, we will go into the streets again. The anti-war, civil rights and social justice movement, whose ranks are being joined in ever increasing numbers by the family members of military personnel and U.S. veterans, can create the effective political force that will end the occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home immediately. It was only the people's movement that ended the invasion and occupation of Vietnam and it will be the global people's anti-war movement that will help end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. To ENDORSE the October 25 International March on Washington, fill out the easy-to-use form at http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/o25/index.html#endo

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition was formed in the days after September 11 by progressive organizations and people in the United States who recognized the need to take immediate action in response to the Bush administration's headlong rush to war and the racist attacks against the Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S. The Coalition organized the first national demonstration against war and racism following September 11 on September 29, 2001, which brought 25,000 people into the streets of Washington DC and 15,000 in San Francisco. The Coalition has worked to build an anti-racist, peace and social justice movement, including mass mobilizations on April 20, 2002 (in support of justice for Palestine) and October 26, 2002 (the first demonstration in opposition to the war drive against Iraq), and the first global day of action against the war in Iraq, January 18, 2003, when millions of people around the world took part in simultaneous demonstrations, including a half a million people in Washington DC. The Coalition coinued to organize mass demonstrations in February and March and began the campaign against U.S. occupation of Iraq in April, 2003.

Its national steering committee represents major national organizations that have campaigned against U.S. militarism and intervention in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia, and organizations that work towards social and economic justice and civil rights for people inside the United States.

Reprinted on Topplebush.com
July 11, 2003