Socialist Viewpoint

When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about an endless war, some took it as mere political speech or rhetoric designed to gain the top spot on the evening network news. I did not. “W” is an agent of his class: the wealthy oil merchants of the land, and his intentions are to press for an ever-wider war in all corners of the earth to make the world safe for capitalist exploitation and unbridled commerce. This will eventually become a war that reaches into a slew of countries in the Middle East and beyond on behalf of the rich and powerful elites who rule.

Make no mistake—this is a war that has nothing to do with democracy. The U.S. enters the region armed to the gills not to defend democracies, but to defend theocracies; to defend kings, princes, and Sultans; to defend U.S. access to the vast oil resources in the region.

And how can the U.S. credibly claim to be leading a war against terrorism when the world’s largest training academy for terrorists is the School of the Americas in Georgia, where some of the most brutal military dictators in the world are alumni.

The U.S. may have since re-named the school, but it has the same essential mission: to create foreign military leaders who are the enemies of democratic and popular movements and who are beholden to their imperial masters in Washington. The graduates of the S.O.A. have proven relentless fighters, to be sure, who are masters of the dark arts of torture, cruel interrogations, rape, and mass murder. And who do they fight but their own people?

To millions of people in Latin America the school is known by the popular name, “School of Coups.” There is scarcely an infamous massacre that cannot be traced to its graduates! When the U.S. raves about a war on terrorism, there are millions of Americans to the South who snort in derision, for they know another America which breeds state terrorism.

The people who brought you 9/11 were brought to you by the C.I.A. school of terrorism, designed to wreak havoc upon the soldiers of the former Soviet Union. They were Jihadis—recruited, paid, indoctrinated, and armed by U.S., Pakistani, Saudi, and related intelligence agencies to wage a holy war against the former Communist government in Afghanistan. And like the proverbial dogs of war, they turned on those who fed and trained them, to remind them of what they’ve unleashed.

And now, with little thought to its true beginnings, the nation is once again embroiled in war—a war that was born not in Kabul nor in the tropical Orient. This war began in cool office buildings in Washington, where men of wealth and power drew up plans to draw the former Soviets into a neighboring territory into what they called the “Afghan trap.” And now, as Malcolm X once said, “The chickens have come home to roost.” You want to stop war? Then stop them where they are born—in Washington, D.C.