Iraq: imperialist butchery in Fallujah
9 November 2004

Bush has lost no time – only days after winning the US election he has launched a murderous assault on the people of Fallujah. Their crime? Resisting the illegal US occupation of Iraq, and refusing to let the troops of a foreign invader seize their city.

More than fifteen thousand US soldiers unleashed "Operation Phantom Fury" with the cowardly hallmark of the US military - carpet bombing and a massive artillery barrage on a city with no air defences.

But 3000 militia fighters armed with kalashnikovs and rockets, and the population of 50,000 people, are mounting heroic resistance to the invaders and their allies &Mac246; the newly trained army of the puppet government of Iyad Allawi.

Thousands of civilians will be added to a total of 100,000 Iraqis already killed since the war began. Bush and Blair are again exposed as mass murderers&Mac247;war criminals just like Saddam Hussein himself.

The butchers of Fallujah claim they are killing its inhabitants "to liberate them". The US and British media describe Fallujah as a stronghold of Saddam supporters, Islamic fundamentalists or "foreign" fighters from Al Qa&Mac226;ida. This is a lie. What has been going on in Fallujah is a popular resistance struggle against the US-dominated occupation forces . It is part of a national liberation struggle &Mac246; the Iraqi revolution.

The resistance of Fallujah to the Americans began in April last year when U.S. troops opened fire on a peaceful demonstration, killing 15 Iraqi civilians. Control of Fallujah was "lost" to its own people. The US army tried to regain control first by a siege and then an all out assault on the city - ŒOperation Vigilant Resolve&Mac226;. They failed because of fierce resistance from the armed population and militia fighters. Forty US marines were killed. Ever since Fallujah has been a thorn in the side of the US occupiers.

The Iraqi resistance is made up of many different forces, all engaged in a popular rising against the US and British colonialists. Far from being a coherent group united behind a single Islamic fundamentalist ideology, as the Western press suggests, the overwhelming majority of resistance activity is spontaneous, small scale, responding to particular outrages of the occupying forces and opportunities to hit back.

The attack on Fallujah aims to crush the growing resistance movement, halt the spread of revolution and instead impose highly restrictive elections, timetabled for late January 2005. Only parties which support the occupation &Mac246; which have not lifted a finger to oppose it - will be allowed to stand. Freedom fighters would be on the run or in concentration camps like Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay.

The idea that Iyad Allawi&Mac226;s government could introduce democracy is a monumental deception. It is a tool of the US and British occupation and would not survive 24 hours without it. In the 1970s Allawi worked for the infamous secret police of Saddam Hussein&Mac226;s regime before becoming an agent of both the CIA and MI6.

The BBC reports that "the plan is that US troops, supported by forces from the interim Iraqi government, will drive a stake through the heart of the insurgency". But this is a fantasy. Even if it is temporarily wiped out in Fallujah, resistance will continue and spring up in a thousand other places across Iraq.

The heroic fighters and people of Fallujah will not alone be strong enough to defeat the USA, the strongest power the world has ever seen. But it can be done - with mass popular action, strikes, occupations and demonstrations. These could paralyse the puppet regime and isolate the occupiers.

A full scale general strike ending in an armed rising of the people could drive out the occupiers and free Iraq. In this trade unions, workplace committees and workers&Mac226; councils have a vital role to play.

The US and British trade union leaders are supporting the new Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and encourage it to stand aside from the resistance struggle in return for being allowed to organise under the occupation. The IFTU leaders have not lifted a finger to resist the murderous US and British troops or to defend the resistance in Fallujah or Najaf. Nor have they defended their own members! They have accepted the privatisation and sell off of Iraqi industry to western corporations

To explain away their petty careerism and indifference to the suffering of the workers and then people of Iraq, they claim that the resistance is just a gang of Islamists, that they cannot be supported because an Islamic dictatorship would remove workers&Mac226; rights.

In fact this cowardice will only ensure that the Islamists win ever greater support &Mac246; not because the Iraqi people have any desire to live under repressive Sharia law, but because they want an end to occupation and will rally to the forces that are fighting for it.

To stop the Islamists coming to power, the working class, women and youth -far from standing aside from the national liberation struggle- should do all they can to come to the head of it. Those who will rule and build the new Iraq should be those who have led the liberation struggle, those who have fought most courageously and created mass democratic organisations in the struggle.

If workers lead this struggle using their own class methods of combat, the mass strike, the workers&Mac226; militia, the mass uprising, then it is they who will be able to take the power and go on to build a society free not only from imperialist occupation, but from the dictatorship of profit itself.

A government of workers&Mac226; councils could take the key levers of the economy back out of the hands of Halliburton and Bechtel, and plan production to meet the needs of the people, not the greed of a handful of parasites on Wall Street or in the City of London.

Iraqi trade unionists can shake off the control of the collaborators who head the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and form unions pledged to fight the selling of Iraq to American and British multinationals.
Oil workers can stop the production and export of the country&Mac226;s mineral wealth. Workers can bring to a halt everything that sustains the puppet regime and the occupiers. Workers, peasants, women and youth can organise delegate councils and militias to organise this struggle.

With such powerful mass organisations they can both drive out the invaders and install their own government- a government of the workers and the urban and rural poor. This government should at once recognise the right to self-determination of the Kurds and the other minority nationalities.

To do this workers will need to their own political party, a revolutionary workers&Mac226; party.

>What can antiwar activists and anti-imperialists do?

Millions of opponents of the war worldwide need to mobilise again with all their strength to demand an immediate end of the occupation of Fallujah and the total and immediate withdrawal of the troops from the whole of Iraq.

In the Arab and Islamic countries, where there is massive sympathy for the Iraqi resistance, as well as for the persecuted Palestinians, an international Intifada must be launched targeting imperialist economic interests and military bases.

In all these countries there is enormous contempt for "their own" regimes which act as tools of US imperialism. They also repress the masses at home, depriving them of political and trade union rights. A mass movement in solidarity with Iraq can develop into one against these collaborators and open the road to full democratic liberties and the struggle for working class power.

We need to come out onto the streets again, from our workplaces, schools and colleges, and we should not hesitate to declare our support for the resistance fighters. Theirs is a totally justified war of self-defence and national liberation. The US and British forces on the other hand are waging a war of conquest and plunder.

Immediate troop withdrawal is the quickest way to freedom for the Iraqi people, one which would save the lives of countless Iraqi civilians and freedom fighters and the ordinary American GIs and British squaddies.

Soldiers&Mac226; families in both the USA and Britain have revealed that large numbers of the troops do not support the war. They don&Mac226;t want to occupy and loot Iraq for the oil billionaires.

The occupying troops should refuse to kill and die for Big Oil. If they refuse then the antiwar movement in the USA and Britain should encourage and support them and their families. They will be real heroes for humanity and freedom.

Around the world if we all pull together we can stop this slaughter and stop this illegal war. Every local campaign, every estate, every workplace and school, every antiwar group, every trade union branch should come together and plan immediate action locally. Delegates should call on national and international campaigns to take action for the withdrawal of the troops now.

• Out onto the streets, demonstrate and block the roads
• Walk out of schools, colleges and workplaces
• Civil disobedience and strike action to defend Fallujah and end the occupation
• Victory to the Iraqi resistance
• Down with the Allawi puppet government and its collaborators
• All imperialist troops out of Iraq now.