ATTAWAPISKAT

It has recently come to light that a Native community in northern ontario are living in deplorable, "third world"like conditions. Moldy houses with no insulation or heating, and some people are living in tents and under fucking tarps! Four hundred children and no school for them. It's bad enough that we think it's okay for the third world to be the third world, but when it comes home, it's horrible. You'd think that the rich assholes who run this country have stolen enough from the impoverished, oppressed nations to be able to send some of the scraps to our own poor. I guess that isn't the case. When the past is buried in lies, and the dominant culture is uncomfortable with the truth, you get the situation that we're facing today.
   Not one of the politicians has mentioned this terrible case of neglect, until recently, now that it's come out in the media, and the fucking red cross are coming out to help. And even now, just one opportunist douche, charlie angus of the ndp, has come out to "investigate". Fuck him and fuck them all. Liars, hypocrites, and racists. And we're supposed to be "patriotic". Support the troops to preserve this way of life. Fuck it.  I'd like to quote from the fine Comrades in the Revolutionary Initiative, a Maoist group from eastern canada, from their "Six Lines Of Demarcation":
   Absolute rejection of the Canadian state
The Canadian state is an instrument of Canada’s monopoly bourgeois ruling class. It is their instrument for war and exploitation of peoples of the neo-colonized peripheries, for the ongoing colonization of indigenous peoples’ lands, for the domination of the working class in Canada, and for the defense of the interests of Canada’s monopoly capitalist ruling class. The workers can not simply take ahold of this state – enter into Parliament, work in the NGOs and social service sector – and think that we can wield all these for our own interests. This is why we reject Parliamentarism and electoralism.
Rather, we must build a New Power, a multinational proletarian-led revolutionary power right in the midst of our enemies. History shows us that such a power that is able to withstand the repression, infiltration, genocide, and terror of imperialism must be led by a disciplined, centralized, democratic vanguard Party of the exploited masses; it must wield a People’s Army under the strict discipline of the vanguard; and it must develop and be developed through a revolutionary United Front consisting of hundreds and thousands of mass organizations – which will be the foundation of the New Power.
To build these three components of the revolutionary movement – Party, People’s Army, and United Front – we must go where the hegemony of the state is the weakest. Whereas Trotskyites build their organizations where the masses (more often the middle strata) are firmly organized under the hegemony of social democrats, especially in the unions and universities, Marxist-Leninist-Maoists advocate organizing the people and building the Party where the masses are most exploited and oppressed, the least organized, and where the state is the weakest. Of course, unionized workers and students should also be organized, but not as the core of the revolution.
To build this New Power, the proletarian revolution, we must begin our accumulation of forces where the hegemony of the state is the weakest.

There are still too many amongst us who have yet to shed their spineless defense of all  things "canadian". Canada is an imperialist power. Granted on a  lesser scale than the usa, but imperialist none the less. And the ruling class in this land must be overthrown by force. And they will be.
Here's an article from the toronto star about Attawapiskat:
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1094631

This is reason enough to fight back. If the fact that women can't walk safely down the street at night, that the canadian military are joining in the bombing of a third world country, that canada now unabashedly supports israel in their continued push to cleanse the Arabs off of their own land, that more people are using food banks and homeless shelters than ever before, then this should be reason enough for all of us.

Ralph Fireman, an 85-year-old in the Cree community of Attawapiskat, lives with his wife and granddaughter in a shack without running water. (Allison Dempster/CBC)

Theresa Fireman has been living in a shack in Attawapiskat with her husband, Ralph, and their granddaughter for a year. They get water from their next-door neighbour, and use slop pails as toilets, dumping the waste in a ditch. (Allison Dempster/CBC)

Trailers used as housing in Attawapiskat were donated by the mining company De Beers Victor. The trailers were intended as a temporary solution to homes rendered unlivable by a sewage backup, but have became permanent housing for about 90 people. (Allison Dempster/CBC)

 

People use tent frames and shacks to cope with insufficient housing. Tent frames are built with plywood, traps and canvas, and are heated with woodstoves. (Allison Dempster/CBC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STARLIGHT TOURS

The recent cold temperatures remind me of stories I heard about seven years back, talking about how the rcmp in saskatchewan would take intoxicated Native men to the outskirts of town, and leave them to find their own way home, often without a jacket or even sometimes shoes. This practice was sometimes known as a"starlight tour". This is basically a death sentence in hell-cold saskatchewan in the fucking dead of winter.
  Is this a case of a "few bad apples making the rest of the force look bad"? I truly fucking doubt it. You know those racist motherfuckers were cracking jokes about this sadistic shit. Was there a massive public outcry? Not nearly as much as there should have been. What if the races involved were reversed? You bet there'd be lynch mobs out in full force. This is yet another reason for this whole rotten system to be thrown out, along with their racist pig enforcers. Here's an article about this, from the cbc, in 2004.

IN DEPTH: ABORIGINAL CANADIANSStarlight ToursCBC News Online | July 02, 2004 Reporter: Mervin Brass | Producer: Heather Abbott The National Magazine There are disturbing allegations that are poisoning relations between Saskatchewan's native communities and the Saskatoon police. They are quite astonishing. And if ever proven, they'd show natives are singled out for brutal treatment. The RCMP has been brought in to investigate the deaths of two native men found frozen, and the allegation of another that he was taken by police to the same out-of-the-way spot and simply left to find his way home. February nights in Saskatoon can mean bone-chilling temperatures. Last month, the body of an Indian man was found near this power plant at the edge of town. Four days later, another discovery: another body found in the same area, frozen solid in this forest of powerlines. Lawrence Wegner was a half-blooded Cree Indian. He was found wearing jeans and a T-shirt. "What would he be doing so far out of town with no jacket and no shoes? And what would anybody be doing that far out of town, period, in the middle of winter, you know?" one native man says. Lawrence Wegner was last seen downtown on the streets. He was pounding on doors. Friends say he was high on cocaine. Around midnight, a passerby says he saw a man who looked like Wegner arguing with a police officer before being pushed into a cruiser. "We used to call it a 'ride in the country' or a 'scenic tour.' A lot of friends I've had have been taken on scenic tours, you know," the man says. They're also called "Starlight Tours": police driving drunk Indians out of town to walk home and sober up. The stories go back years. Some say it's an urban myth. And it might have stayed that way, except for one Indian man who came forward with a shocking charge, accusing police of dropping him in the same spot where the dead men were found. It was -22 C that night. It all sounds familiar to Greg. He didn't want his face shown because he's afraid of police. He has a long criminal record, including theft, second degree murder -- a charge that was later dropped. Greg says he's been on four starlight tours. Once he was driven 50 kilometres outside of Saskatoon. "I asked them again,' Where am I going? Where are you guys taking me?' They said 'Well if you're such a bad ass and you got a lot of steam, if you want to be a trouble maker,' he goes, 'you want to blow off steam.' He goes 'Well, you can blow steam out of town.' So we were driven -- I was driven to the Borden bridge. When I got to the Borden bridge, I was taken out of the car at the back; I'd been handcuffed all the way through the ride. I stood at the back and they took me out of the car. And they told me 'Well,' he says, 'This is how it is.' He says 'You can walk home.' And he said 'When you walk home,' he says, 'if we ever catch you again being a foul-mouthed little asshole, next time we'll drive you further or something else will happen,' he says. So the cuffs were taken off and they had driven away. And I ended up walking home. And it took me about seven hours to get home," Greg says. "Why didn't you, you know, make a complaint?' Brass asks. "If I'd launched a complaint, in my mind, it would never have went anywhere. It was just. It's the same thing: it's police investigating police; they're a brotherhood," Greg says. There are stories like these all over town, but there are no records; no paper trial. Still, at a vigil to remember the dead men, suspicions are now openly traded that police may have deliberately left the Indians to fend for themselves in freezing temperatures. Those fears have only worsened the deep mistrust between police and the native community. Saskatoon police chief Dave Scott suspended the two cops involved with the alleged drop-off. But he says nothing ties the officers to the deaths of the two men. "Is this widespread? Are there reasons for me, as chief, to be concerned about the activities of our police officers. At this time, I have no indication of that," Scott says. "I would ask first that you have confidence in me as the chief of police and the leader of this police service, to ensure that a complete investigation will be done properly and I can assure you it will be." But it was not enough to ease public fears. Five hours later, the whole thing was turned over to the RCMP. They've set up shop in a motel in what's become the largest investigation in the province's history. But restoring the reputation of the Saskatoon force will be a tough sell, especially to aboriginal youth. Lyle also has had numerous run-ins with cops. "It gets kind of frustrating you know," he says. "These people are supposed to be watching out for us and protecting us, to serve and protect. And they are out there just hiding behind their badges." At 15, Lyle got caught stealing bikes. At 17, he says he was taken on a starlight tour: He was drunk, causing a ruckus; police picked him up. Lyle thought he was heading for the drunk tank. Instead, they headed out of town. "One cop just turned around and he was talking to me, telling me like 'you're a tough guy; you think you're fucking tough.' And I was like 'No, I don't think I am tough. I am just going home. I am going home to go sleep.' And I thought I was going to get beat up by them. Like I started getting scared by that time. They pulled over to this driveway, and it was like driveway into a field. And the passenger cop got out and opened the door. "And the other cop comes walking around and they got me out of the car. And the younger cop kind of shook me by my jacket. And then they told me like they were like 'You have 20 seconds.' And I was like '20 seconds for what?' And he says you see that field? And he is like run. Run into that field. I got really scared at that time. I didn't ask no questions -- I just started running. I would rather have taken a beating then get dropped out there, like, you know. But you know I made it home. At least when you get a beating -- I've had lots in my life and like I can take a beating and keep on ticking you know. And get up and walk away from it. Better to be swollen and alive than stiff and dead," Lyle says. Sakej Henderson is a human rights lawyer who teaches at the Native Law Centre in Saskatoon. Henderson believes starlight tours grew out of police frustration at dealing with repeat offenders -- and they weren't always sinister. Indians avoided jail. Police avoided a paper headache. "It's been common knowledge in the profession, especially the defence bar, that this is what happens. These starlight tours are not new and they've been going on for a very long time. But there's very few times we have to bring it into court because of course when they drop them off, there's no charges laid usually," Henderson says. "They know it's a solution to going to court -- booking paperwork everything else they have to do. So they'll do the shortcut of dropping you off at the end of town or at a distance where you can walk back home and you know, cool off and collect yourself and let the alcohol wear off. Rather than just booking them and filling up the jail and taking all their time doing this stupid administrative paperwork. Well that becomes their normal thinking. But then they start crossing the line by getting a little more daring, or saying I'm going to make him take a longer walk or not paying enough attention to the weather and its changes on the prairies." Jim Maddin was on the Saskatoon police force for 25 years. Now he sits on city council. "If somebody asked me does this happen -- I couldn't look them in the eye and say absolutely no, it's never happened; never will happen. I couldn't say that," Maddin says. "General talk, discussion, locker room, coffee talk, what have you. Reference made to that. I've heard stories of people where this has happened to in other cities. Who's to say it didn't happen here? I can't say it didn't happen, but I can also say that I never observed it personally at all. And at no time when I was in charge of officers on the street, at no time was it ever brought to my attention." Relations are tested nightly between police and Indians. Maddin says officers are tired of being blamed for the high number of native arrests. "Officers, I think, can tend to get frustrated with it, sure because they don't tend to see the system actually contributing to the solution of the problem," Maddin says. "It's just a simple temporary fix to pick up the intoxicated person, get them out of the public view or off the public street until such time they're sobered up to better care for themselves and then release them back, only to repeat it again. Sometimes in a very short time -- a matter of hours." There were 2,000 arrests for drunkenness in Saskatoon last year -- many on an infamous strip around the Barry and Albany Hotels. The action is testimony to more grim statistics. Natives are charged with half the crimes in the city, and over 70 per cent of inmates in the local prison are Indian. Aboriginals make up about 15 per cent of the population of Saskatoon. That's grist to the mill for the province's native leaders, who say the justice system discriminates against them. Now they've got something else, another case for the RCMP; a death that's resurfaced after 10 years. Another Indian found frozen on the outskirts of town. Neil Stonechild's body was found in an empty lot at the north side of the city. It was -28 C the night before -- one of the coldest of the year. Neil was 17 years old and on the run from a young offender's home with a warrant out for his arrest. Neil's death was a frightening shock for his friend Jay. He says he immediately suspected foul play and he doesn't want his identity revealed. Jay says the two had been out partying when Jay called it quits and headed home alone. Then a police cruiser rolled up. "The police stopped me and the first question was, is they asked me if I knew this guy," Jay says. "Neil was in the back of the police car with his face cut open, bleeding. And they asked me if I knew this guy and I said no. Why I said no is because I was on the run from the law and I didn't wanna be back in the police car with him, you know. "And Neil was screaming and swearing at me and telling -- he was saying 'Okay, help me man, these guys are gonna kill me.' He was swearing about a lot of different thing, but that's what struck out most in my mind is that he said that. And you know right at that moment it really scared me, because his face was cut open pretty good. That was the last time he saw Neil alive. The frozen body was found five days later. The memory still bothers him. Jay says he made two reports to police, but nothing came of it. Police won't comment on the case now. At the time, police concluded Neil died of exposure -- that he was heading to a nearby prison to turn himself in. "That is so far-fetched, I just don't believe it. Neil was wanted by the police. He had more than a few drinks. And he was wanted by the police. And I didn't understand why they had let him go," Jay says. Fred Gopher is chief of the Saulteaux Reserve near Saskatoon. He doesn't think the RCMP investigation will resolve much. Starlight tours are only part of the problem. "Our own people have suffered enough. And I think the justice system has not done what it was supposed to do for our people," Gopher says. "I'd like to see some kind of solution with our people to be involved and look at the whole thing, look at the bigger picture. Why is our people overpopulating the incarceration institutions? Look at the employment factor on our reserve here -- just 90 per cent on welfare. There is very little hope for our people. It's the whole system." The scandal has hit the reserve hard. One of the dead men is buried there. And the man who alleges he was forced out by police at the power plant also has family here. Chief Gopher says its was difficult to persuade him to go public. "'Well,' he says, 'nobody is going to believe him.' And I don't blame him for thinking that way. It will be just an allegation; he's just making it up. He's another drunken Indian. There's some good cops out there and I believe there's some cops that probably took advantage of the situation. Nobody's talking about it. Nobody's doing nothing about it." "I think that the Saskatoon police service has, in fact, made some significant progress in dealing with aboriginal youth, especially through the efforts of the aboriginal relations officer that we have here," Maddin says. "Police have, in fact, been essentially reaching out to aboriginal youth to build better -- better relationships, better bonds and a greater degree of trust." That's something many Indians scoff at. Since the deaths of the two men, native leaders say they've received over 250 phone calls reporting similar stories across the province. Now they want a public inquiry to examine the entire justice system. The two deaths have pushed race relations in the province to a critical point -- and it could get worse. Resentment towards police is highest among aboriginal youth, the largest and fastest growing part of the population. Many get caught in a life on the street, on a collision course with police and prison says Sakej Henderson. "It's not gonna stop. That's what the over- incarceration figures tell us. If you're running about 60, 70 per cent of aboriginal inmates, they are gonna organize themselves into gangs. That's what they learn in jail, is that they have to unite. There maybe two or three factions, but there are Indian gangs that are coming up and taking the place of family and protectors and political organizations for them," Henderson says. "With a majority of our people as teenagers, we have all the problems of a teenage nation. But they're not real receptive to listening to us that are over 50 or so. That we didn't solve the problems; now they have to solve them." "A dead Indian is just a good Indian to them, I guess. It's all I can figure," Lyle says. For Lyle and others, all this talk about starlight tours has only led to more bitterness. And the worst part: so many saw it coming. "I think with the two deaths, I think everyone saw themselves there," Henderson says. "I think we all saw ourselves complacent with this. We've all known about it, but now it's a crisis that's unfolded; that somehow the routine system has become a deadly system and there's now dead people in the field, and we have to find out why. And we have a whole backlog of cases that's never been solved, and now looks suspiciously similar to an alleged police drop off and we have to get to the bottom of it." The RCMP won't say when its investigation will be completed, but there are many who aren't waiting. ^TOP

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NO SIR, I DON'T

There is an ongoing debate with people on the pacifist/social justice side of the fence as to whether they should wear a poppy on remembrance day or not. Some opt out altogether, some wear a white poppy, some choose to wear a red one, but in commemoration of the soldiers and their sacrifices, not in glorification of war. I do not wear a plastic flower, but not for those exact reasons.
   Those who wear one in honour of the soldiers' "sacrifices", should remember the white power soldiers canada sent to Somalia, where they killed African teenagers, and photographed themselves stupidly grinning with the dead bodies, or that fucker lewis mackenzie, who was sharing drinks with genocidal serbian soldiers, and later repeated the incredibly insulting lie about how the Bosnian side were "shelling themselves". Of course. Perhaps they were committing genocide and mass rape against themselves also? Rumours persist to this day amongst the local populace about him having local girls(forced into sexual slavery) sent to his apartment. He later went on a speaking tour (sponsored by serbnet), where he repeated the lies and propaganda in favour of the aggressor. And now the asshole is called a fucking hero, and has a highway named after him in ontario. And lest we forget russell williams, who at one time was also called a hero, at least until he got caught raping, torturing and killing women in his own neighbourhood, never mind whatever he did in foreign countries.
   And no, I cannot support the role canadian troops are playing in Afghanistan. They are in a support role for the fucking yanks, who are only there to secure someone else's natural resources, and nothing else. No one is there for womens' rights, or any other human rights issues. It's all cosmetic. The Islamists still play a huge role there,and women are no safer there (or here) than they were before.
  I also do not believe that troops died so I can "enjoy the freedoms I enjoy today." I do not think that they(consciously) went off to die in WWI so that I could be deceived by rich politicians, and have the incredibly enlightening "right" to vote for some asshole who is going to fucking steal from the people again, and again.
   You will never see a plastic red (or white) flower on me. Here's your hero.Support the troops.

FUCK IMPERIALISM

U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Iraq:

An Imperialist War of Lies and Horrendous Crimes Against the Iraqi People

by Larry Everest

On Friday, October 21, President Barack Obama announced that all 40,000 remaining U.S. military forces would be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year: "After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," he said.
Obama presented the end of the war as the fulfillment of a campaign promise, and a proud moment for the U.S. in fulfilling a noble mission:
"The last American soldier[s] will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops...This December will be a time to reflect on all that we've been through in this war. I'll join the American people in paying tribute to the more than 1 million Americans who have served in Iraq. We'll honor our many wounded warriors and the nearly 4,500 American patriots—and their Iraqi and coalition partners—who gave their lives to this effort."
Obama also called the withdrawal from Iraq part of "a larger transition." He said, "The tide of war is receding...Now, even as we remove our last troops from Iraq, we're beginning to bring our troops home from Afghanistan..." He claimed "the United States is moving forward from a position of strength."
While Obama talks about "the tide of war receding," the U.S. is increasing its military presence and aggression in Libya and Africa. It's escalating drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It's waging a bloody war in Afghanistan, where there are still close to 100,000 troops. And no, the U.S. military role is not being ended in Iraq either. The U.S. has been forced to withdraw its military units—in part because it couldn't forge a new "status of forces" agreement with the Iraqi government. But thousands of U.S. diplomats, military contractors, CIA operatives, and other support personnel will remain in Iraq after the end of the year. The U.S. will still have tens of thousands of troops, as well as air and naval power and various military alliances in the Middle East and Central Asia. And it continues to rattle its sabers against Iran and Syria.

The 2003 Iraq Invasion—A Towering War Crime, Based on Lies

This announcement by Obama should make people reflect—on how and why this war was launched, what it was actually about, and what it says about the nature of the U.S. capitalist-imperialist system. Obama and the ruling class and media have deliberately obscured, covered up, and lied about these issues for a decade—ever since the run-up to the Iraq war began in the hours after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
This war was justified on the basis of bald-faced lies that were cooked up through a deliberate campaign of deceit that began soon after Sept. 11. There was the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Then there was the lie that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda and was somehow involved in September 11. U.S. government "investigations" and the media have blamed "faulty intelligence" or being "suckered" by Iraqi sources for their failure to find a single cache of WMD in Iraq. This is just another cover-up.
There is overwhelming evidence—from many sources—that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these were deliberate lies—concocted at the highest levels of government, repeated endlessly by both Democrats and Republicans, and by the imperialist media, which served as cheerleaders for the war. And these lies were enforced by threats, smear campaigns, and retaliation against any government and/or military officials or former officials who tried to challenge or expose them. (For instance, government officials and experts knew full well that Hussein was hostile to Islamic fundamentalism and that Al Qaeda essentially didn't even exist in Iraq before the U.S. invasion—it was only until after the invasion that they arose within Iraq.)
Obama and the rest of the rulers want us to forget about all this.
These lies were designed to cover up the nature of the U.S. invasion: a naked act of aggression against a small, weak, Third World country which had not attacked the U.S., and which had been subject to over 20 years of U.S. military assaults, covert attacks, and political and economic strangulation. This aggression included the Iran-Iraq War (green lighted and prolonged by the U.S.), the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and a decade of U.S.-UN sanctions. These sanctions were responsible for the deaths of at least 500,000 children and perhaps as many 1.7 million Iraqis overall.
In short, the U.S. invasion of Iraq fit the textbook definition of a criminal war—a war crime. This basic—and obvious—truth has systematically been censored, suppressed, and covered up by a decade of ruling class lies and double-talk.
These lies—and the lie that this war was about "liberating" the Iraq people—twisted the truth inside out, in true Hitlerian fashion. In reality, this was a war launched by the world's most violent and globally oppressive power. It was part of a plan to seize on 9/11 to launch a war to strengthen and extend its empire of exploitation and military domination. The U.S. imperialists aimed to turn Iraq into a U.S.-controlled military and political outpost—and imperialist gas station—in the heart of the Middle East. It was to be a first step toward reshaping the whole region to suit U.S. capitalism-imperialism. It was meant to be part of defeating and socially undercutting Islamic fundamentalist forces in the region, which were posing obstacles to U.S. plans. The U.S. rulers planned to use this oil-rich and strategically located region as a club against any rivals—regional or global. They were driven by a real fear that their "unipolar moment" of global dominance—when the U.S. was the only imperialist Superpower after the demise of the USSR—could be slipping away. And the U.S. was intoxicated with imperial hubris—they dreamed of creating an unchallenged, and unchallengeable empire—dominating the planet as no other power ever had before.
As Bob Avakian puts it, "These imperialists make the Godfather look like Mary Poppins." (BAsics 1:7)

Horrendous Impact on the Iraqi People

Obama talked of honoring "our many wounded warriors and the nearly 4,500 American patriots—and their Iraqi and coalition partners—who gave their lives to this effort"—the reference to the Iraqi people inserted in passing, a throw-away line, with no content.
But what has the impact of this war been on the Iraqi people? This reality—while well documented—has been deliberately ignored and lied about by the imperialist state, and the ruling class' multi-faceted apparatus for shaping public opinion.
The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has led directly to massive slaughter, displacement, torture, sectarian violence, suffering and death. While the U.S. media occasionally mentions that 100,000 Iraqis have died during the U.S. war and occupation, this number vastly understates the actual number of Iraqis directly murdered or who died as a result of the war—as well as those whose lives have been drastically shattered.
A 2006 survey published in the British medical journal Lancet found that there had been more than 650,000 "excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war" up to that point. In 2008, a study by the polling firm Opinion Research Business put the number at over 1 million.
According to the UN's Refugee Agency, over 4.7 million Iraqis have been driven from their homes—two million forced out of Iraq entirely. Three million Iraqi women are now widows, according to Iraq's government—many forced into prostitution.
When government officials and the mainstream media do mention the fact that the war has left 100,000 Iraqis dead, what's left unsaid is who is responsible—making it seem as if these deaths were accidents or unfortunate "collateral damage," or the fault of "terrorists" or "age-old conflicts" among Iraqis. In fact, the U.S. imperialists are directly responsible for most of these deaths—even as reactionary Islamists (whether inside or outside the Iraqi government)—have carried out atrocities was well. First, many of these millions were killed or displaced directly by U.S. forces. Second, since 1990, the U.S. had systematically shattered Iraq's civilian infrastructure (water, power, etc.), and then violently dismantled Iraq's governing structures after the invasion; both actions had catastrophic impacts on life in Iraq. Third, the U.S. empowered reactionary forces, including Islamist parties, to govern Iraq—butchers who have carried out widespread massacres and campaigns of religious sectarian cleansing against the Iraqi people, particularly against the Sunnis, as well as campaigns to forcibly impose reactionary Islamic strictures on Iraqi women.
The U.S. military has committed widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity. They have tortured and sexually degraded and abused countless thousands of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other torture centers. They've turned prisoners over to the reactionary U.S.-backed Iraqi regime knowing they would be tortured. "US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished," the Guardian UK reported. ("Iraq war logs: secret files show how U.S. ignored torture," guardian.co.uk, Oct. 22, 2010).
In November 2005, U.S. Marines murdered 24 Iraqis in cold blood in the city of Haditha, and then blamed it on "insurgents." In 2006 in Ishaqi in central Iraq, "U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence." In July 2007, a U.S. helicopter gunned down 11 civilians in Baghdad. Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar wrote, "A video posted this week by WikiLeaks [of the helicopter massacre] is not an exception to how the U.S. occupation operated in Iraq all along, but rather an example of it. While the video is shocking and disturbing to the U.S. public, from an Iraqi perspective it just tells a story of an average day under the occupation." ("The Haditha Massacre, and the Bush Regime: Illegal, Immoral, and INTOLERABLE," Revolution #50, June 11, 2006; "WikiLeaks: Iraqi Children in U.S. Raid Shot in Head, U.N. Says," McClatchy Newspapers, September 1, 2011; "Video Shows U.S. Killing of Reuters Employees," New York Times, April 5, 2010; Raed Jarrar, "Iraq: Seven Years of Occupation," CommonDreams.org, April 10, 2010)
These are the actions that Obama says Americans should "be proud of."
Not one single major U.S. military commander, U.S. official, political leader or war-leading media talking head has been held to account for any of this.
The U.S. and its military forces are not beloved by Iraqis as "liberators"—they're hated by millions of people around the world as savage, violent foreign imperialist occupiers.

Withdrawal of U.S. Troops Amidst Mounting Contradictions

For all this violence, the U.S. has not been able to achieve its grand strategic objectives in Iraq, or even its scaled-back objectives. When George W. Bush signed the status of forces agreement in 2008 calling for an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq by the end of 2011, it was assumed (perhaps even directly agreed upon) that U.S. forces would remain in Iraq for sometime after that "withdrawal date."
For over a year under Obama, the U.S. has been trying to negotiate a treaty with Iraq under which as many as 18,000 U.S. military forces could remain in Iraq. This summer, the U.S. scaled down its demand to some 5,000 military personnel. But when the U.S. insisted its military forces be given immunity from prosecution by Iraqi authorities for crimes under Iraqi law, the negotiations broke down. This breakdown reflects, and is a product of, the many complex, shifting contradictions the U.S. faces in attempting to more forcefully assert its domination in the Middle East—and how its "war on terror" to forcibly reshape and more directly control Iraq, Afghanistan, and the region has ended up exacerbating the very contradictions and obstacles the war was designed to resolve. All this has also intersected with new, unanticipated developments across the region and globally.
So it was this breakdown (and ultimately these deeper difficulties)—not a deliberate plan—that forced Obama's hand (even as he had strategically aimed to scale back U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, in an attempt to better deal with the deep stresses and strains on the empire).
This is but the latest chapter of U.S. ambitions in Iraq being thwarted, then scaled back, and then thwarted some more. It is important to recall what exactly the Bush regime dreamed of in Iraq. A March 21, 2003 Wall Street Journal piece spelled some of it out:
"[Bush's] dream is to make the entire Middle East a different place, and one safer for American interests. The vision is appealing: a region that, after a regime change in Baghdad, has pro-American governments in the Arab world's three most important countries, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In the long run, that changes the dynamic of the region, making it more friendly to Washington and spreading democracy. Reducing the influence of radicals helps make Palestinians more amenable to an agreement with Israel."
But the U.S. began to encounter big problems within a few months of invading Iraq. The Bush regime thought it could quickly and totally remake Iraqi society and start "fresh"—creating a fully subservient neocolony, designed to fit the global needs of U.S. capital and the regional needs of U.S. power. The U.S. disbanded the Iraqi Army, barred most Sunnis from holding government positions, and attempted to install a hand-picked U.S. puppet council to rule. It even tried, under Paul Bremer, the U.S. "Administrator" of Iraq, to ram through drastic "free market" capitalist economic restructuring.
These predatory and nakedly imperialist measures soon sparked a growing armed resistance, centered among Iraqi Sunnis, that led to a 5-plus year civil war and threatened to both tear Iraq apart and render the U.S. occupation untenable. The American invasion, coupled with the end of Hussein's essentially secular regime, fueled Islamic fundamentalism—both Sunni and Shia. It provided an opening for Al Qaeda and other Islamist forces to gain a foothold in Iraq. The U.S. was forced to abandon its chosen lackeys (who had little following inside Iraq) and turn to reactionary Shia religious forces and parties, willing to work with and under the U.S., to attempt to govern and stabilize the country. (A majority of Iraqis are Shias, and these parties have a long history in the country.) These forces have varying ties to and tensions with Iran; and they have tensions and differences, as well as common interests, among themselves and with the U.S.
Being a foreign occupying power and creating a new state from the ashes of the Hussein regime proved to be extremely difficult. Toppling the regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, other regional developments, and the hatred the U.S. wars spawned across the region ended up strengthening Iran. Such tensions and contradictions, including the mood of the people in Iraq, and the Iraqi rulers' fear of the kind of popular uprising sweeping the region (perhaps triggered by a too-close public embrace of the U.S.) factored in to the impasse in negotiations over U.S. forces continuing in Iraq.
None of this is to say that the U.S. is giving up on control and domination of Iraq, or that it won't continue to have a presence and shape events there—including with new assertions of political and military intervention. Iraq's economy, politics, and military remain subordinate to and dominated by imperialism (even as there are complex, shifting, and multi-layered contradictions at work). The largest U.S. embassy in the world is in the heart of Baghdad, Iraq's capital. ABC News reported that the State Department will continue to have some 5,000 security contractors and 4,500 other support contractors in Iraq, as well as a significant CIA presence. And U.S. officials have stated there will be a continuing military relationship with Iraq that will include the training of Iraqi forces. "So we are now going to have a security relationship with Iraq for training and support of their military," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, "similar to what we have around the world from Jordan to Colombia." (Democracy Now, 10/24)
Further, the U.S. has built up a regional military infrastructure over the past 30 years, and officials have made clear they are not leaving the region: "We're going to maintain, as we do now, a significant force in that region of the world," Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated, including some 23,000 troops in Kuwait and about 100,000 in Afghanistan. "So we will always have a force that will be present and that will deal with any threats." ("U.S. Withdrawal Plans Draw Suspicion, Fear in Iraq," Wall Street Journal, Oct 23)
Containing, weakening, perhaps overthrowing Iran's Islamic Republic of Iran has been a central objective of U.S. strategy since the launch of the "war on terror" in Sept. 2001. Yet in many ways, the U.S. war and other events have strengthened Iran. And now, it's possible that the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq may strengthen Iran further—in Iraq and regionally.
"The withdrawal from Iraq creates enormous strategic complexities rather than closure," one imperialist think tank analysis posed. "Therefore, if the U.S. withdrawal in Iraq results in substantial Iranian influence in Iraq, and al Assad doesn't fall, then the balance of power in the region completely shifts. This will give rise to a contiguous arc of Iranian influence stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea running along Saudi Arabia's northern border and along the length of Turkey's southern border." ("Libya and Iraq: The Price of Success," STRATFOR, Oct 25 2011)
This possibility has driven the U.S. to ramp up its threats against Iran. As soon as the troop withdrawal was announced, Secretary of State Clinton warned, "Iran would be badly miscalculating if they did not look at the entire region and all of our presence in many countries in the region." (CNN—State of the Union, 10/23)

Grand Schemes.... Profound Difficulties

Obama's hollow claim that "the United States is moving forward from a position of strength" cannot hide the fact that this entire decade of war has cost the U.S. enormously. It has greatly aggravated deep stresses in the U.S. empire, and it has intensified a whole cauldron of contradictions the U.S. faces in the strategically crucial Middle East-Central Asian regions. Dominance in this area has been a pillar of U.S. global power in the post-World War 2 era, and to its current and future status as the world's superpower. So the U.S. imperialists are compelled to attempt to find ways to maintain their power, presence, and preeminence in the region. But they're finding this an increasingly difficult and uncertain endeavor.
So yes, let's reflect on these nearly nine years of war and occupation in Iraq. They demonstrate that the U.S. is willing to employ massive violence and commit savage crimes to advance its imperialist interests and stave off reversals or defeat. It shows that the rulers of this country are chronic liars who will say anything—including the most blatant and obvious lies—to bamboozle people into going along with their program. These eight plus years prove, once again, that nothing good can come of U.S. intervention and aggression—no matter how it's dressed up. And they underscore the moral imperative of exposing the crimes and opposing the aggressions committed by this country.
At the same time, the war's unfolding and now the U.S. military's ignominious exit from Iraq, also illustrate the empire's profound and growing vulnerabilities, and how quickly its grand schemes can backfire. All this points to the potential for even deeper shocks and crises to jolt U.S. capitalism-imperialism, and the urgency of revolutionary work today to prepare for such a moment in order to be able to seize such an opening to sweep this war-mongering system away. Then we won't have to mark anniversary after anniversary of imperialist war after imperialist war.
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"What we see in contention here with Jihad on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade on the other hand, are historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system. These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these 'outmodeds,' you end up strengthening both. "While this is a very important formulation and is crucial to understanding much of the dynamics driving things in the world in this period, at the same time we do have to be clear about which of these 'historically outmodeds' has done the greater damage and poses the greater threat to humanity: It is the historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system, and in particular the U.S. imperialists." Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:28

"In a world marked by profound class divisions and social inequality, to talk about 'democracy'— without talking about the class nature of that democracy and which class it serves—is meaningless, and worse. So long as society is divided into classes, there can be no 'democracy for all': one class or another will rule, and it will uphold and promote that kind of democracy which serves its interests and goals. The question is: which class will rule and whether its rule, and its system of democracy, will serve the continuation, or the eventual abolition, of class divisions and the corresponding relations of exploitation, oppression and inequality."

Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:22

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