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Workers Power, London, 16 November 2003
George W Bush visits Britain this week for the first time since his conquest of Iraq and clearly hopes for a reception befitting his position as the new world emperor from his loyal vassal, Tony Blair. We should make sure that he receives a different kind of reception altogether.
Indeed, so sure are his security services of the hatred and anger he incites among most British people that they demanded unheared of measures from the British government. They wanted diplomatic immunity for any US guard that kills a protestor. They wanted the Tube system closed down and Black Hawks and other aircraft constantly patrolling London's skies. They even aimed to have Battlefield weaponry in place.
Home Secretary Blunket said no - the US police are repressive enough! Still, Bush will have 250 of his own armed guards; and Whitehall is likely to be sealed off from protestors.
There are 10,000 reasons to get out onto the streets and loudly condemn this tyrant's visit: that's the estimated number of civilians killed by the US/UK illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Estimated - because the invaders do not count the Iraqi dead. They merely shoot... and move on to the next victim.
Inevitably, this is producing a growing resistance to the New American Century -in Iraq, in the USA itself, and around the globe.
Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the invasion, has been forced to admit that they are involved in "a long hard war... that is difficult and complicated".
The Iraqi adventure is looking more like Vietnam every day. When 16 US soldiers were killed and 20 more severely wounded in a missile attack on a Chinook helicopter early this month, Rumsfeld called it, "a tragic day for Americans".
These freedom fighters are not merely remnants of Saddam's Ba'athist regime, foreigners streaming in from Syria and Saudi Arabia, or fanatical supporters of al-Qa'ida. Some in the resistance may be. But the tens of thousands chanting, "Death to America!" - in the mounting protests for benefits, jobs and essential services as well as on religious processions - are not.
Indeed, the armed resistance is increasingly supported by a mass movement against the occupation. And that's not surprising.
Having promised "democracy" and "free elections", the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has appointed a toothless - and hated - "Iraqi Governing Council" with a vague mandate to draft a constitution by an ever-receding deadline. This is a signal to the world and to the Iraqi people that the occupation will continue indefinitely, while its Iraqi collaborators provide it with a thin veneer of legitimacy in the duplicitous world of big-power diplomacy.
At the same time, Iraqi industry is to be privatised, sold off to the highest bidder from those countries that backed Bush and Blair's war, with the prize pickings going to the likes of Halliburton and the other close corporate buddies of Bush and his cronies in Washington DC. The Iraqi people, already suffering mass unemployment and economic devastation, will have the misery of redundancies and plant closures imposed in the name of "market forces" thrust upon them before any election has been called or any vote cast.
To add insult to injury, the US-appointed dictator of Iraq,Paul Bremer, has even announced that Israeli companies will be allowed access to the Iraqi market - and Iraqi oil - on an equal footing with firms from other countries. This juicy piece of diplomacy was announced just after the US had condoned Israel's unprovoked bombing of a disused Hizbollah training camp in Syria and her "apartheid wall" which will further ghettoise the Palestinians and steal even more of their land.
The celebrated "road map for peace" is looking more like the highway to state-sponsored terrorism and racist annexation every day; Bush's war for democracy more like a war for imperialist control of the Middle East.
The United Nation Security Council's recent vote to "legitimise" the occupation of Iraq will not change these facts. On the contrary, it will further de-legitimise the UN.
But, if Bush was hoping no one would be counting the Iraqi dead, he sure as hell now hopes people would stop counting the American casualties. The attack on the Chinook was followed by a hit on a Black Hawk near Mosul which then collided with a second helicopter of the 101st Airborne Division; at least 17 US soliders were killed in the double hit bringing the total number of US soldiers killed after their president announced the "end of major conflict" to more than 150.
US Labor Against the War, a trade union initiative, has mushroomed in recent months, boosted by the support of soldiers' families alarmed at the lies surrounding both the lead-up to the war (the non-existent weapons of mass destruction) and the occupation itself.
Embarrassingly, last month, it was exposed that the US Army had sent near-identical upbeat letters to regional newspapers, supposedly signed by soldiers in Iraq, saying how well the war was going. Meanwhile, emails from the Sunni Triangle reveal an army confused as to why they are there, aware of widespread hostility to their presence and angry at the lies of their officers and government.
40,000 marched in Washington DC against the occupation at the end of October, chanting, "Bush says, Bring 'em on - we say, Bring 'em home!" The anti-war movement there is, if anything, stronger than it was back in the spring.
Indeed, Bush's popularity back home is waning fast - his approval rating has dropped to 45 per cent, same as it was prior to 9/11 - and here are some of the reasons why:
• George W Bush stole the presidency through a rigged election
• The US Patriot Act has removed basic civil liberties of the 10 million immigrants, while criminalising trade unionists, anti-capitalists, Muslims and anti-war activists
• He has outlawed more strikes than any previous president and used the fiercely anti-union Taft-Hartley Act to break strikes by airline workers and California dockers
• His anti-abortion stance threatens women's rights to control their own bodies
• In contrast to this deeply-held respect for the right to life, he supports the death penalty and, while Governor of Texas, signed death warrants for youth as young as 16.
Bush's record already condemns him in the eyes of millions as a criminal, a terrorist, an environmental polluter and a danger to the democratic rights of ordinary people.
Under his leadership, the United States has torn up the Kyoto protocol on global warming, while giving the green light to US multinationals to exploit and pollute the globe. It has insisted on immunity for its soldiers from prosecution for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, while imprisoning - and torturing without trial hundreds of captives from its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according them neither prisoners of war status nor the due process of a fair trial.
That's why it's vitally important for tens of thousands to come down to London on Thursday, 20 November to drown out his every interview with the world's media, to ruin every photo-opportunity he and Blair try to stage-manage, to howl with derision at every triumphalist gesture he attempts.
If students have to walk out of schools and colleges, if workers have to down tools to get there so be it!
Already Bush is said to be "disappointed" at the enforced cancellation of his coach-ride with the Queen and address to the House of Commons - cancellations, Downing Street has admitted, were due to the expected size of the demonstrations. Let's make him feel gutted by the time he leaves.
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[2003]