Refuse Both Terrorism and Militarism

 

On September 11th, the world capitalist order slid significantly further into the barbarism which is the only future it is capable of holding out for humanity. Whichever group was behind the horrific, abominable attacks on the USA, they are part and parcel of this capitalist world order. They were not attacks against capitalism, globalization, or 'Western Civilization'. They were, rather, attacks against the American ruling class, in reprisal for the imperialist activities the U.S. state and ruling class has engaged in, principally, in the Middle East, in the countries considered to belong to the world of Islam.

Whatever 'religious' or political ideological justifications might be offered in 'defense' of those attacks, they only mask the capitalist, indeed, imperialist ambitions of those behind them. They want the USA 'out' of 'their' supposedly Islamic countries, so that they and their allies can control those countries, so that they can exploit the natural resources and the workers found there. If they have the wealth, the resources, and the weaponry to engage in such attacks, then they can only be one more proto-statist capitalist gang, a faction - 'dissident', though they may be - of the ruling class from whichever country they originate. Their motives can only be to strengthen their own power at the expense of the power of the U.S. ruling class. Their campaign of terror against innocent people from another country is only an expression of their desperation, owing to their relative weakness, to exact revenge against their enemies. But the tragic irony of their insane actions, is that while many innocent people die, the real enemy - the U.S. state and ruling class - will only be strengthened and emboldened as a result.

In response to the attacks, the USA has declared war 'against terrorism'. President Bush said war had been declared against the United States by those behind the three hijacked planes which attacked the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon, near Washington, D.C. on September 11th. Bush claimed, "It's a new type of war. It's going to take a long time to win this war."

But how can the U.S. win a war with such a nebulous enemy as "terrorism"? Hadn't the American state been "at war against terrorism" for the past 30 or so years, with no end in sight, in fact, with all hope of victory long since having vanished? Besides, what are the criteria for deciding that the war is won, or is being won? That terrorism ceases to exist? That will not happen as long as there is a single capitalist state in existence; since every state, within its territory, has organized, armed, military domination over all of its internal enemies as well as over all of the people of that territory, and such domination can only be enforced by using or threatening to use that force against any and all of those it dominates, … and that is precisely the essence of terrorism. And, as the world's militarily dominant state, the planet's only superpower, the USA is well known-outside of its own borders, at least-to be the world's leading terrorist organization.

Leaving that aside, the various capitalist states of the world will never eliminate the terrorism of the numerous "outlaw", "criminal", or "illegal" terrorist gangs which operate "underground", in the shadows of various different countries, the so-called "rogue states". How can they, as long as they continue to engage in imperialist exploitation and domination, leaving untold misery, deprivation, and despoliation wherever they operate? The USA will, as long as it exists, always have foreign enemies, including states which are willing, under the circumstances-in particular, of their national interests being dominated and humiliated by those of the U.S.-to harbour, and perhaps even to actively assist, "fugitive" terrorists and their gangs. How will this contradiction be eliminated, short of eliminating the U.S. state itself?

So then Bush and his cronies aren't really serious about a "war on terrorism"? In fact, I believe they are. But "terrorism" will come to be defined so loosely that, for example, any group of people, whether anti-globalization protesters or striking workers, who can be deemed to be "threatening the economy" will be classified as "terrorist", and thus vilified by the mass media and all those who blindly swallow its propaganda. Everyone will be set up to choose sides: EITHER for the state, democratic law and order, and the free market economy OR against all of these, and thus for "anarchy", "violence", "destruction", "disorder", and "TERROR". This, of course, is a false choice, and none but a few lunatics are going take up the fight for Terror. However, there will be strong pressure exerted on most people-and thus, on much of the working class-to "tow the line", to "fall into line", behind the President and his administration, that is, support and fully identify oneself with the U.S. STATE. This pressure must be resolutely resisted if humanity is to avoid falling victim to a new World War between terrorist gangs, states or otherwise.

Many people are just as disgusted and sickened by the response to the attacks of the American ruling class, and its allies, in their attempt to use the current crisis in order to consolidate their power over us and to save their economy from collapse, as they are by the attacks themselves. Working class people need to remember that their interests are clearly distinct from those of 'their' state and its ruling class. When those rulers claim that workers must sacrifice wages, benefits, working conditions, and even their own lives "for the good of the nation", we must remain true to our own human interests and refuse to accept their imposition of austerity, cuts and militarization of society. It is our own rulers (those of the dominant imperialist countries, that is), who, by their exploitation and subjugation of people in numerous "lesser developed" countries, not to mention various CIA-directed coups and murderous counter-insurgencies, have sown the seeds of terrorist attacks such as those that occurred in the U.S. on September 11th. Well, you reap just what you sow. But in fact, it is always the working people who suffer the most in these cases.

The powerful and the wealthy are usually safely out of the way.

There is only one way in which the escalating cycle of terror and violence between states and terrorist gangs can be permanently eliminated, and that is by means of the organized, militant resistance of the global working class to all those who hold power over us. That is why the working class needs to begin, starting today, working towards ridding the world of the source of terrorism in all its forms and guises, by escalating its own class war against all the gangsters of the ruling class, and ultimately, against the system which they are all merely agents of, that is, capitalism. To do that, the working class must come to identify itself as a distinct class, which, through its own internal (and international) solidarity and conscious action, has the collective power to finally rid the world of this scourge.

For class war against the imperialist war-mongers!

Wage Slave X

 Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist homepage

waslavx@hotmail.com

Originally published as a leaflet September 18, 2001.

 No War But the Class War

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