Once Again, A Short Note on Iraq- "Cut and Run Now"

Commentary

Well, we have just passed the commemoration of five years of war in Iraq. We have also, sadly, passed the 4000 mark of those American soldiers killed there. Now comes news that the civil war has flared up again in Baghdad and Basra. This time from a different source, the Madhi Army. My friends this is serious. If there are any serious, disciplined militia fighters in Iraq it is this group. Several months ago I warned that come spring we would see the real ‘fruits’ of the military surge of the past year that was to make everything ‘nice’. Well, the bandage seemingly has lost its adhesion. Plan as if all hell is going to break loose. It probably will.

I mentioned last week in commemorating the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq invasion that I was momentarily just a little fatigued by our failure, that is the anti-war movement's failure, to force an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. You can forget that fatigue factor now. All out into the streets under this slogan- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American/Allied Troops And Their Mercenaries From Iraq!! - “Cut and Run Now”

WHAT IF THEY GAVE A WAR AND NOBODY NOTICED?

COMMENTARY

I hope that I am not the only one who has noticed that the war in Iraq has fallen way below the newspaper fold lately. As a prime example in a recent edition of the Boston Globe news of the war was on page 10. Page One, front and center, featured the trials and tribulations of those yuppie trend setters who are ‘pioneering’ the concept of luxury condo living adjacent to upscale malls. Go figure. I was ready to get out the old hankerchief on that on.

Moreover, the vaunted presidential campaign has shifted it axis, especially on the Democratic side, as there is now far more talk about various domestic priorities than the fate of the war. On the Republican side there is a certain amount of gloating, especially by Senator McCain who has hinged the fate on his campaign on the success of the troop ‘surge’ to bring some stability to Iraq. And frankly he should gloat. One would have to be a fool, political or otherwise, to not recognize, that at least in the short haul that military strategy has worked. Whether come next spring when American troop levels go down by attrition and the Iraqi forces have to fend for themselves more that will still be the case is still an open question.

This is a good time to be clear here about why we opposed this war in the first place. If for no other reason, we opposed this war as an act of imperial hubris. We very definitely did not oppose it under a standard of whether it made military sense or that the question of ‘victory’ for the American side was important or not . We have to remember that as we are once again, as in the immediate aftermath of the invasion in 2003, somewhat isolated and shut off politically. In short, the political slogan of the day still is- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of U.S. Troops and Mercenaries from Iraq! Know this though- there is a world of political different between forcing the troop question through our political efforts and the leisurely withdrawal of troops, if any, on the Bush (or any) Administration’s timetable. We must continue to force the issue. More, much more on this question will follow as the situation develops over the next few months.

ON IRAQ: AN INTERVIEW WITH 'STREET' JOURNALIST NOEL TOERTT

My old friend Noel Toertt, free-lance ‘street’ journalist and contributor to the monthly political magazine New Dawn, is just back from Iraq. If you are merely interested in the handouts from the U.S. Embassy or press conferences by Central Command in order to find out about the situation there pass this by. However, if you want to know what the situation is on the ‘street’ Noel will more times than not give you some insight into what is happening and why. Sometime I will give a real biographic sketch on the man but for now know that he is of Russian-German heritage. His grandfather was a Czarist general at the time of the Russian Revolution. An uncle fought in the Ernst Thaelmann Battalion of the International Brigades in Spain during the Civil War. Those seemingly contradictory facts will tell you part of the tale of his life. Make no mistake, as the interview below will make clear, we do not share the same political universe for the most part. What we do share is the need to turn the world upside down. This interview took place on October 21, 2007. More of the interview will follow in later entries. Any transcription problems are mine. Any political problems you can be the judge.



Markin: Noel, long time no see. How are you doing? You look at little tired?

Tortt: Ya, my flight back from the Middle East was a nightmare. I think I would rather have been on a cargo plane at least you have room on them. And the booze is better.


Markin: Just to set the frame for the interview when did you first go to the Middle East?

Tortt: Actually I started covering the area at the time of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, about 1980; I worked out of Pakistan first. Iraq about 1990 during the build up for the first Iraq war. Afghanistan again in 2001 and Iraq again, off and on, since late 2003. I have written about all of this maybe a hundred times.

Markin: Okay now that we have established your ‘credentials’ here is the first ‘softball’ question. I have been arguing, unhappily, since late spring that, all things being equal, that the Bush troop ‘surge’ in Iraq by placing more troops on the ground would be successful in the short haul. As long at the American troops stayed in the lead. Now several months later and after the Petreaus/Crocker reports to Congress and the tamp down on known acts of violence it looks to me like that is the case. What is your take on this?

Tortt: Look, let’s look at this from this perspective. A conventional army like the American one, and especially the American one, can rain hell down on any other conventional army if it has the will. Adding a few more troops, more or less, doesn’t really change the mix. This asymmetric warfare is a different baby though. Once the numbers for the ‘surge’ and where they would be concentrated became general knowledge insurgent decisions had to be made. For the various insurgent operations you noticed what amounted to a self-imposed tamp down on confronting the American forces. So yes, today, and I only speak of today in an almost literal sense, the ‘surge’ has had some successes. But listen, the atmosphere in places like Baghdad is so tense you could cut a knife through it. That’s the real situation. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.



Markin: Waiting for the other shoe drop and do what?

Tortt: Waiting for the Americans to back off enough to go back on the ‘offensive’ and this time with more sophistication and probably more co-coordinated attacks. One thing that gets forgotten in the mix is that these guys have nothing but time. Hell for the most part it’s their country so they aren’t going anywhere. They also know that the Americans have to leave sometime so like smart guys they prepare, keep up enough of a presence to worry the American generals and move when the time is right. Not a nice picture from the American side but that is the story.


Markin: How do you know that they, the insurgents, have not just decided that there is no way forward on the road they were pursuing and have decided to close up shop?

Toertt: Let’s go back to that tension in the air business I mentioned a while ago. Nothing indicates that they have given up the struggle. Let me tell a little point to bring that home. I ran into a kid, and I do mean kid, who was carrying about a half dozen cell phones in need of various repairs. He approached me and asked me for some batteries that I did not have. I asked since the phones did not seem to work what he needed batteries for. He replied that a ‘friend’ would have them working pretty soon. The way he said it made me think that something more than calling his girlfriend was on his mind. No, they are getting ready believe that. By the way those cell phones were thrown away by the Americans in the Green Zone if that kid was not lying, and I do not think he was. Shades of Vietnam all over again.

Markin: What do you mean?

Toertt: Well, the American army in Vietnam supplied, incidentally and unintentionally, a fair amount of material to the South Vietnamese Liberation forces that they turned around and used as ammo, etc. against the Americans. Also remember the Iraqis are smart people. Hell this area is the cradle of civilization and although they have lost a few steps over the centuries they are still smart. It never did anyone any good to underestimate a determined foe, although the Americans repeatedly do so.


Markin: Well, if the Bush strategy is a temporary success at least what about the other part of the puzzle- turning the war over to the Iraqi national army and police forces?

Toertt: That, Markin, is a whole different ball game. Let me take a couple of steps back on this. Saddam build a pretty good national army in his time. At least it looked like it could fight or be used, as is the usual case, for any internal disturbances. However, he squandered that army in the Iran wars in the 1980’s. Then the cream got decimated in the Kuwait fiasco in 1991. After that the thing was a bleeding hulk. By the time 2003 rolls around it is essentially human dust. Nothing since then has indicated that a national army, or for that matter police force, can be built that will do the job of defending the government or put a stop to foreign interventions. Look it is hard to create a real army. You need cadre. As I mentioned above that, for the most part, has been liquidated. So what you have now are a bunch of kids who have seen nothing but failure being forced usually out of economic necessity to take up the gun. Add in the sectarian aspect and the stigma of working with the occupiers and that does not present a very good picture. That is what the American generals scream into the night about.

Markin: That sounds like a recipe for a very long occupation


Toertt: Right, do not let anyone kid you, nobody I talked to realistically thought about being out of Iraq for five to ten years with the ten years being more likely. And they were not sure even then that the army they trained could do the job. Believe me when they invented the expression between a rock and a hard place they had something like Iraq in mind. More than that though I do not see a will to create an army. There are just a bunch of scared kids (justifiably so) in a place they do not want to be in. The proof of that are the exceedingly few operations the Iraqis do on their own. You made me laugh one time when you said in one of your commentaries that you would like to see the Iraqis do an operation without half the 82nd Airborne beside them. You hit the nail on the head on that one.


Markin: Well here is the ‘hard’ question. We have talked earlier today and at previous times about this. As you know for the last year or more I have been arguing for a change in orientation for the anti-war movement away from the futile parliamentary maneuvering and linking up with the rank and file troops in Iraq to end the war. I asked you before you left for Iraq this time to get a feel for this for me. What did you think?


Toertt: Markin, you have got to move away from your love of the Russian Revolution and all that happened there. It is starting to unbalance you. Sure the Russian troops then were ready to lead the fight against continuing the war and they did it with their feet. Hell, they tried to boil my grandfather the General in a barrel. But that was different. They were war weary, they had land hunger and mainly they were tired of the offensives that led nowhere except to death. Rather exceptional circumstances won’t you agree. And nothing like today.


Markin: I figured I would have to take a verbal beating from you on this but as I have pointed out before the whole point of making propaganda for this position was to change the axis away from reliance on essentially Democratic parliamentary maneuvering to bring about a troop withdrawal. Believe it or not I realize that conditions in Russia in 1917 and today are different but the task is the same.

Toertt: Okay, Okay we have been through that before but to answer your question I do not see any movement like that today. First, the ‘success’ of the surge has tended to solidify the rank and file back to at least neutrality about what they are doing there. Secondly these kids are a long way from home and want to get home fast. The shortest way seems to be to do their time and rotate. I also think that the effects of being a part of a professional force tend to militate against those kinds of actions. In Russia, and even in the late stages of the Vietnam War, these were actions of citizen-soldiers fed up with the way things were going. I got no sense of that. Sure there is some opposition to the war among the rank and file. And also some confusion about why they are there. And importantly, some resentment toward those who they perceive are not respectful of their mission. All those things are normal and to be expected.

Markin: Okay, that is a fair enough evaluation although it does not negate the need for a change in orientation. One last question for this round. Where does all this go? If parliamentary maneuvering is doomed, if the troops will not lead us out- then what?

Toertt: You like to call yourself a hard socialist realpolitik politician. I like to call myself a tough liberal realpolitik observer. Here is the hard reality. Korea and Germany. Yes, a long term occupation force smaller than today’s for a very long time, make that a very, very long time no matter what administration is in power, except if your guys take political power before. Ouch.

Markin: Thanks, I will take that under advisement.

On Parliamentary Cretinism and the Iraq War Budget

Commentary

Immediate Withdrawal from Iraq!


Have I missed something or has the war in Iraq fallen off the political radar screen lately. The last big splash of news was back in September when General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker gave their self-servicing positive reports and the Democratic-led Congress tried unsuccessfully to tie funding for the war with a timetable for troop withdrawals. Since then other than rhetoric there has been virtually nothing on the parliamentary playing field. Not to worry though. Just when one had though that the anti-war parliamentary Democrats had gone into hibernation until 2009 (or later) they have come back at us with part two of their parliamentary cretinist strategy.


On November 14, 2007 House Democrats pushed through a $50 billion funding bill for the Iraq war tied to another one of their inevitable timetable schemes, this time with the idea of ending combat by December 2008. The measure passed 218-203, basically along party lines. If this plan sounds familiar it is. This is the same tried and true strategy they have been using since last spring. Here is the problem with that strategy as we are too well aware of by now. The measure cannot pass in the Senate. Moreover, this measure faces the inevitable Bush veto which cannot be overridden give the composition of the Senate. So why would seemingly rational politicians go over the same ground they got beaten down on before? Ah, here is the rub. The Democratic House leadership wants voters to know that they tried. Well, hell yes they did but my read on the midterm elections that brought those self-same Democrats back to power was to actually end the war. Trying is only good in selected situations, maybe horseshoes. This is certainly not one of them. Do we really need any more proof that the parliamentary road to ending the war is a dead end? I think not.

A couple of other interesting points have come up around the political configurations concerning the war budget vote. Last spring Democrats tried to twist arms, break heads and promise the moon in order to get Republican politicians to break with the Bush administration on Iraq. They had some initial success, especially with Senators from hot anti-war states facing reelection in 2008. That tactic ran out of steam once there was an iota of evidence that the ‘surge’ military strategy was working in Iraq, at least for public consumption. The present House vote indicates that the lines have hardened and that there is no political benefit for Republicans to drift far from Bush on the war. Timing means a lot in politics and with elections fast approaching this is one of them.

The other interesting point is the reaction some of the hard anti-war House Democrats to the proposal. In the past upwards of thirty such politicians have voted against previous similar proposals because the timetable was too long or some other reason. The beginning of wisdom here is a straight vote against any funding on principal, not funding tied to some other condition. Apparently a few of the 'hards', notably Representatives Woolsey, Lee and Waters buckled under after being assured that the money would be used to bring the troops home. Why is this important to us? For the last several years the leadership of the non-parliamentary anti- war leadership, United For Peace and Justice, ANSWER, World Can’t Wait, etc. have touted these representatives as our allies. The long and the short of it is we do not need allies who will vote for the war budgets under any pretext. It only adds fuel to my contention that the only way to get the troops out of Iraq is by our own means. Increasingly that appears to be require declaring war on the parliamentary Democrats. Immediate Withdrawal from Iraq!

*THE ABC'S ON THE WAR BUDGET

COMMENTARY

NOT ONE PENNY, NOT ONE PERSON FOR THE WAR!

ATTACHING UNENFORCEABLE RIDERS ONTO THE WAR APPROPRIATIONS BILL IS NOT A NO VOTE ON THE WAR BUDGET. HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRAT KARL LIEBKNECHT-HE KNEW HOW TO VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET.

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT!

WRITTEN ON MARCH 17TH 2007 THE DAY OF THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ORIGINAL MARCH ON THE PENTAGON

Okay, one more time on the war budget. As I have repeatedly mentioned over the last year or so the only meaningful parliamentary maneuver on the Iraq War is a no vote on the war budget, under the principle of not one penny, not one person for the war. I have nevertheless been castigated lately for a seeming softness on the Democrats when I mentioned that the beginning of wisdom was a straight up and down no vote on the budget. (See ONCE AGAIN ON THE DEMOCRATS AND THEIR IRAQ WAR in the archives for March 2007). Some very politically savvy acquaintances of mine have assumed that this meant political support for the Democratic efforts in Congress, particularly in the House, for the various pieces of legislation now before those bodies. Apparently they have missed my very clear statement that we cannot support such legislation.

Why no such support? All the riders on the legislation, and I mean all, are attached in order to pass the war budget. The only control is over the timetable for withdrawal. That, dear readers, is very, very far from not one penny, not one person anti-war politics. Where, in God's name is that a capitulation to Democrats? No one, I repeat, not one of the Democrats from 'fellow traveler' Vermont Senator Bernie Saunders to Democratic presidential candidate Congressman Dennis Kucinich has advocated a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. That said; let us take a look at history to see what a real parliamentary anti-war war budget vote looks like.

I have mentioned elsewhere the name of the revolutionary German Social Democrat Karl Liebknecht in association with my model for what a parliamentary anti-war leader should look like, and even he had to do some somersaults to come out to the right decision. (See March 2006 blog archives.) As is well known, or should be well known, the Western European social democracy as institutionalized in the Second International before World War I was formally committed to the fight against war and especially imperialist war. That included a pro forma commitment to opposition to the capitalist war budgets. As we know, to our regret, those sentiments were fine in peace time but by the time that the war drums for World War I started most European socialist parties were committed to vote in favor of their own nation's war budget. Most notorious in this regard was the stance of the German Social Democratic Party, the largest and most organized party in the International, that voted unanimously (including Liebknecht) to support the Kaiser's war budget on August 4, 1914.

An explanation is in order about Liebknecht's initial vote. The German Social Democratic Party's parliamentary delegation in 1914 (composed at the time of 110 members) was bound by bloc voting. Since the majority in caucus voted for the budget Liebknecht felt obliged to go along at the time, but not for long. By December of 1914 he had broken that fictitious solidarity and cast the lone against the war appropriations. For those familiar with the Liebknecht story, and those who are not, he went on to cast more no votes and got a few more Social Democrats to vote with him (not always for the same principled reason or with his intensity). Ultimately his agitation led to the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and eventual imprisonment for what amounted to treason against the German state. Liebknecht was later release as a result of the events of the November 1918 German Revolution and shortly thereafter assassinated, along with Rosa Luxemburg, after attempting to establish a Socialist Republic during the failed Spartacist uprising of January 1919.

To even tell the Liebknecht story in the content of what today passes for anti-war bourgeois politicians seems slightly ridiculous. With the Iraqi War seemingly never ending and subject to increased 'phantom' escalation with the latest news that the American military command in Iraq want several thousand MORE troops to support the already committed five ‘surge’ brigades anything short of a no vote seems less courageous than usual, if that is possible for capitalist politicans.

IMMEDIATE U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ

COMMENTARY


IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ!!

Break with the Twin Parties of Capitalism—For a Workers Party that fights for a workers government!

This an article of interest from Workers Vanguard the newspaper of the Spartacist Laegue/US


March 19, 2006 marks the 3rd Anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq now is the time to renew our efforts to get out of that quagmire. Enough is Enough! ANYONE who reads this statement knows that the occupation of Iraq is not going well for U.S. imperialism. More than 2,000 Americans have forfeited their lives in Iraq, while over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed as a result of the war and occupation. Most Americans are now aware that the expressed reasons for the occupation were lies concocted by the Republican administration. As a result there is a mood of defeatism in the air reminiscence of the Vietnam era, especially among Democrats politicians, as a way to hide their complicity in the destruction that rained down on the peoples who inhabit Iraq. The Democrats would have us believe that they were at the tender mercies of Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and one Karl Rove. Believe this at your peril.

The bitter truth is that to date the main imperialist executioner of the Iraqi peoples was Democrat Bill Clinton, backed by a United Nations embargo. The starvation blockade, mainly during his eight years in office, killed a million and a half Iraqis. Furthermore, in the lead up to the current war the hundreds of UN monitors of Saddam Hussein's military capabilities assuredly communicated to both Democratic and Republican leaders, that Iraq was incapable of any coherent military action against the U.S. Additionally, the Bush administration created the myth of the link between Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda. The press was aware of the reality, as were these selfsame Democrats, who nevertheless voted overwhelmingly for the war.

As a capitalist party, the Democrats are dedicated to the fundamental interests of U.S. imperialism, which launched the Iraq invasion to assert its unchallenged domination over this oil-rich region and the globe. The reformist and liberal left that dominates the antiwar coalitions hangs on to the coattails of the liberal imperialist opposition, searching for more rational ways of maintaining this profoundly irrational system. As advocates of class struggle against the rulers of this society, our standpoint is the need to mobilize the multiracial working class in a fight against the imperialist rulers, both Democratic and Republican. We must take a side for the military defense of Iraq against the U.S. and allied imperialists, at the same time standing in irreconcilable political opposition to the reactionary puppet regime. To that end we must fight for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. This is the burning issue of the times.

Ruling Class War Against U.S. Workers

Ordinary working people are being hammered by draconian cuts in health benefits and the disappearance of pensions. Despite these declines U.S. workers are prone to see themselves not as members of the working class, with interests that are counterposed to the capitalists, but as part of a "middle class" that lies somewhere between abject poverty and unimaginable wealth. The American ruling class, who know there is a working class from whose exploitation they derive their profits, and who seek to increase profits through speed-up, layoffs and wage cuts do not share such illusions. There are a number of historical sources for the political naiveté of the U.S. working class, that is, for its inability to recognize its class identity in opposition to the capitalist class. The primary and day-to-day barrier to the forging of a working-class party is the special oppression of black people as a race-color caste. If the good industrial job has gone, it is to no small degree black workers who are thrown into unemployment and the grinding poverty of the ghetto. If education and health care are going down the drain for most everyone, it's been this way in the ghettos for decades. What Karl Marx said almost 150 years ago is every bit as true today: "Labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded."

For Working-Class Power!

Now that it clear that Bush’s regime is incompetent the Democratic wolves are gathering. For decades, it was the norm that the Democratic Party, as the capitalist party that sought the votes of working people, at least pretended to address their concerns, promising a less savage and heartless social contract. This was the legacy of the 1930s New Deal under Franklin D. Roosevelt, which proposed a set of palliative reforms in an attempt to deflect an upsurge of class struggle. Instead of leading to the formation of a workers party, the titanic labor battles of the time were channeled by most leftist political organizations, notably the American Communist Party and most of the union leaders into support for Roosevelt's Democratic Party. Since that time, it has been primarily through the instrument of the Democratic Party that the trade-union officialdom has chained the workers to the capitalists and their state. Let’s be clear about this. The Democratic Party has the same class interests as the Republicans. The Democrats may still wrap their program differently to appeal to their voters, for example over social issues such as abortion rights. Whereas the Republicans are open in their contempt for labor and blacks, the Democrats continue to posture as "friends of labor," the better to position themselves to contain outbreaks of class struggle. But given the low level of class and social struggle, there is simply no current motivation for the Democrats to offer up the New Deal rhetoric that some of their liberal ideologues demand. Furthermore, ruling-class politicians, Democrats included, will not lightly tamper with the imperial presidency. Nevertheless, increased parliamentary opposition to the Bush administration may well deepen if, for example, the Iraq occupation gets further bogged down or the domestic economy worsens.

Damn It! Any labor movement worth its salt would use the unraveling of the White House to mount a fight back against the massive assault on working people. Why, for example, given the attacks on health benefits and the declining number of those covered by any such insurance, are the unions not fighting for some form of national health insurance? This directly raises the question of labor's leadership. We must understand that the existing leadership of the trade unions is the representative of the capitalist order within the working class. Residing in the most powerful imperialist country on the planet, this labor bureaucracy not only concedes the "right" of the capitalist rulers to a profit but supports their aspiration to dominate their imperialist competitors. This is just as true of Andy Stern's Change to Win Coalition as it is of John Sweeney's AFL-CIO officialdom. Both seek "partnership" with the American capitalists. The labor tops' class collaboration is exemplified by their "America First" protectionism, pitting the U.S. proletariat against its class brothers and sisters overseas, and their role as lieutenants of U.S. imperialism in subverting struggles of working people in the semi-colonial world. The burning need for class struggle is inextricably linked to fighting for the political independence of the proletariat from the capitalists' political parties and governmental agencies. What is required is a new, class-struggle leadership of labor. The crucial task is to break labor from the Democrats and to forge a working-class party that shares no interest with the bosses but rather seeks the overthrow of their system and the establishment of workers rule.

The fight to forge an American revolutionary workers party requires the exposure and denunciation of those who lead the workers onto the path of reform of the murderous and anarchic imperialist order. This includes those leftist organizations whose efforts center on pleading with the Democrats to beat imperialism's guns into the plowshares of jobs and social benefits.

The groundwork for the current attacks on the well-being of all was prepared with a frontal assault on black people. This is graphically highlighted by the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina. Moreover, the deindustrialization of the Northeast and Midwest has been especially devastating in this regard, since unionized industrial jobs were central to the fragile economic base of the segregated black communities. Budget cuts slashed social welfare programs, capped by Clinton's 1996 "reform" all but eliminating welfare, and hit particularly hard at black workers in public services. In short, anything that could be characterized as addressing the needs of the black population became a target. The loss of jobs was accompanied by skyrocketing incarceration of young black (and Latino) men, largely under the banner of the "war on drugs." The intensification of state repression included a speedup on death row, campaigns for draconian mandatory sentencing and the construction of myriads of prisons.

Black oppression, with its profound and pervasive ideological effects, is fundamental to the American capitalist order. Obscuring the class divide, racism and white supremacy have served to bind white workers to their capitalist masters with the illusion of a commonality of interest based on skin color. A workers revolutionary party simply cannot be forged in the U.S. without linking the fight for black freedom to the fight against all exploitation and oppression. It is necessary to recruit those who recognize the depravity of U.S. imperialism to become fighters for the forging of a multiracial working-class party to fight for a workers government linked to other workers governments internationally. Forward!!