This speech was delivered on Dec. 1 to delegates at the World Against War Conference in London on behalf of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).
Sisters and brothers, my name is Muna Coobtee. I am an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition in Los Angeles, Calif. I am also on the National Board of the National Council of Arab Americans, and a member of the Free Palestine Alliance—one of the member groups of the ANSWER Coalition National Steering Committee.
I want to thank the organizers from the Stop the War Coalition for all of the hard work in bringing this important assembly of international anti-war organizers together. I also want to express our heartfelt solidarity with all of the progressive and anti-imperialist fighters here in England. I would like to say a few words about what our coalition believes is most urgent for the anti-war movement in the coming period.
It is essential that we have a candid assessment of the war itself, the dynamics driving the U.S. war machine, which not only invaded and occupies Iraq, but which carries out a systematic and prolonged effort to overthrow the governments and carry out regime change to establish U.S. proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and within the Palestinian Authority.
The U.S. war drive is not only driven by the political line and orientation of the so-called neoconservatives. Rather, there is a generalized consensus within the U.S. ruling class that the strategic area of the Middle East must be dominated by U.S. imperialism.
Changing the equation
On Sept. 15, 2007, the day Gen. Petraeus was required to submit his report to Congress on the progress of the so-called surge, the ANSWER Coalition organized a demonstration of 100,000 people—led by Iraq war veterans and mothers and fathers whose children were either killed or wounded in Iraq, or are currently serving there.
We marched from the White House to the Capitol, and at that point, when large numbers of riot police attempted to block our path, thousands of people participated in a mass die in. More than 200 were arrested crossing through the police barricades.
We felt at that time that it was essential that the movement be in the streets in large numbers to counter Petraeus’s report, which should be understood as nothing other than a propaganda item to justify an escalating criminal campaign designed to destroy Iraqi society, and create a deeply divided country, organized, financed and armed by the occupiers on destructive ethno-sectarian lines.
The U.S. corporate media, the Bush administration, and most of the Democrats in Congress, either openly or quietly embraced Petraeus’s divide and conquer strategy in Iraq, and hailed the surge as a success. This propaganda campaign, which is designed to camouflage reality and buy a protracted political breathing space for the imperialist occupiers in domestic politics, cannot be effectively countered by any other method than large scale, massive street actions by our movement.
The real purpose of the surge is to change the political equation so that the U.S. military could avoid the perception of having suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of an armed Arab resistance movement. The perception of catastrophic defeat would serve to stimulate other anti-imperialist forces that want to resist the encroachments of the U.S war machine. The imperialists understand that the perception of military defeat would embolden revolutionary movements in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan—the proxy regimes that rule those countries on behalf of U.S. interests.
The movement can grow
I want to speak for a moment about where are and where we need to go.
In the United States, the anti-war movement has carried out many significant and increasingly militant actions in the last year. Just in the last six months, we have carried out a mass march on the Pentagon on March 17, the demonstration led by Iraq war veterans of 100,000 on Sept. 15, and on Oct. 27th United for Peace and Justice in some areas, and the ANSWER Coalition in other cities, took the lead in organizing protests that drew 100,000 people in 11 cities across the country.
On May 31, 2007, the ANSWER Coalition issued an important proposal to the movement arguing that all of the major coalitions in the United States should agree that despite whatever political and organizational differences we may have, we should in the next year pick a certain date, and with the slogan end the war now carry out the largest, unified anti-war demonstration in U.S. history.
Seventy percent of the population opposes the war in Iraq. Soldiers, marines, sailors and their families—a sector that had been traditionally more conservative and closer to Bush—have increasingly become the leadership of a new wave of anti-war activism.
We are also noting, and everyone can confirm this, that the demonstrations in the past nine months in the United States have seen their ranks filled by young workers, college students and high school students. This is a significant and undeniable trend.
Even though the demonstrations and activities have been substantial and good in the last year, we believe that the anti-war movement can exponentially increase its power by making every effort to overcome secondary organizational issues so as to agree that we will unite all of our efforts around the demand “End the war now!” Of course, all coalitions would retain political independence with their slogans and literature, but this would be the political anchor.
An independent movement
This is important not only to counter the Bush administration’s “surge” propaganda; it is also the pivot for the most important challenge facing the U.S. anti-war movement in the coming year.
As Bush is reviled, with public opinion turning so decisively against the Republican Party leadership, the Democratic Party will offer itself to the anti-war movement as an “alternative.” The great strides and progress that we have made in building an independent anti-war movement in the United States can only be strengthened if we realize that we are not simply facing off against Bush and the neoconservatives and Republicans. We are fighting against the entire U.S. military-industrial complex, of which both the Republicans and Democrats are the political representatives.
The Democrats want to harness the anti-war sentiment for their own electoral advantage, but they will not and cannot share the most important demand of our movement, which is to end the war without condition today. We demand that all the U.S. forces and all foreign forces leave now, and we recognize that it will only be the mobilization of the people that can realize this demand.
Both parties of the military-industrial complex are wedded not only to the occupation of Iraq, but also to the imperial objectives of the Bush administration, including the targeting of the Iranian government for destruction.
Yesterday, in the United States there was an important meeting of many significant anti-war organizations convened by Cindy Sheehan. That meeting was organized to bring all anti-war groups together into a solid united front for the upcoming fifth anniversary actions—starting on Sat., March 15 and running through March 19/20.
While recognizing that we have significant political and organizational differences, the purpose of the meeting was to insist that we owe it to the people of the United States, and more so to the people of Iraq and the struggling people of the Middle East, to stand shoulder to shoulder on the fifth anniversary of the war in Washington, D.C.
To march and carry out direct action together as one movement in such large numbers so that the world will know that the people of the United States reject a government that speaks in our name and sends our sons and daughters to kill and be killed in a war for empire. Only by building that kind of principled unity can we forge the movement necessary to shake the empire in its very foundations.
This is ultimately the great test for all U.S. anti-war organizations.
The ANSWER Coalition will do everything in its power to bring masses of people in the United States on the fifth anniversary—to work with you internationally, to make this day a day of militant opposition, to insist that all foreign forces leave Iraq, that reparations be paid to the country for the great crimes committed against them, to demand no war or attack against Iran, to stand with the people in Lebanon and the people of Palestine, and with people everywhere who desire peace, who strive for social justice, and who affirm the inalienable right to self-determination. To stand as one in a global day of action against the forces of colonialism, neocolonialism and foreign occupation.
Thank you again for your excellent and hard work.
U.S. out of Iraq! End the war now!
