Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Carl Webb refuses to fight for imperialism! Defend Iraq and Afghanistan!

My name is Carl Webb and I was a soldier that refused to obey orders to serve in Iraq or any place at all. I refused to report for training with the Texas National Guard at Fort Hood and left Austin, Texas back in August 2004. Right now I'm creating a record here where I and others can find information and track the progress of my struggle.

Defend Iraq!

In Iraq today, we have a side against the U.S., its allies and Iraqi lackeys. Our starting point is to demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops and allies. We defend the peoples of Iraq against any U.S.-led attack and repression. Insofar as the forces on the ground in Iraq aim their fire against the imperialist occupiers and their lackeys, we call for their military defense against U.S. imperialism. Every blow struck against the imperialist occupiers is a blow struck against the enemy of workers and the oppressed all over the world. At the same time, we are intransigent opponents of the murderous communal violence against other ethnic, religious and national populations oftentimes carried out by the very same forces waging attacks against the occupation armies.

The call to "Bring the troops home" is an accommodation to those who appeal to the U.S. rulers to get the American troops out of harm's way; this is what Lenin called social-patriotism�expressing concern primarily for the loss of American lives rather than for the victims of U.S. imperialist terror. This call serves to obscure the fact that working people in the U.S. should take a side militarily with the Iraqi peoples against the U.S. military occupiers. The blows directed against the U.S. imperialist occupiers and their Iraqi lackeys represent a just struggle by Iraqis against a neocolonial occupation. And responsibility for the deaths of American soldiers lies entirely with the U.S. ruling class. We say: Defend the peoples of Iraq against the occupation forces! All U.S. troops out of Iraq now! At the same time, we oppose the deadly communalist violence in Iraq against other ethnic, religious and national populations, which is often carried out by the very same forces fighting the occupation armies. During the war we called for defense of neocolonial Iraq against the predatory U.S. imperialist attack without giving an iota of political support to the reactionary Saddam Hussein regime.

The program of pacifism, on the other hand, is based on the false premise that peace can be achieved without overturning capitalism. In this sense pacifism is of great service to the capitalist rulers because it helps them channel discontent with war into an impotent movement crying out "Stop the War!" This is why a handful of capitalist "peace dove" politicians typically come out against the war (while, of course, "supporting the troops")�they appear on the platforms of liberal antiwar protests to keep the "movement" safe for capitalism.

Contrary to popular left mythology, what ended the Vietnam War was the military defeat of the U.S. imperialists by the revolutionary workers and peasants of Vietnam who carried out a social revolution that overturned capitalism. ROTC was successfully driven off hundreds of campuses in the late 1960s and 1970s not because of a mass pacifist movement, but because the U.S. was waging a losing war in Vietnam while facing massive social and class struggle in the U.S.
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions." (Marx, The Communist Manifesto)