Workers World Party Statement
The massive and stunning attacks Sept. 11 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon pose tremendous challenges to the working class and the progressive movement in this country and around the world. The U.S. capitalist ruling class and its political establishment are now preparing a warlike response that can only lead to more suffering and deaths. ...
It should be remembered that the 1964 congressional resolution giving a blank check to the Johnson administration for the Vietnam War was passed 98-2 after a fabricated “attack” on U.S. warships in the Tonkin Gulf that was later exposed in the Pentagon Papers.
On Sept. 12, a resolution passed the U.S. Senate 100-0 that gives the present administration the same kind of unrestrained authority to wage war and to finance the Pentagon with whatever funds it requests. In the context of the present capitalist economic downturn, everyone should understand that this means with Social Security funds — the trillions of dollars set aside from workers’ earnings for their retirement — more than anything else.
The pronouncements of U.S. leaders from President George W. Bush on down make it clear that the government’s priority is to restore the image of unchallenged U.S. hegemony in the world by unleashing its powerful military somewhere. There can be no doubt that the targets will be peoples in oppressed countries where the mass sentiment is already one of anger at past U.S. aggression and extreme exploitation.
If this happens, it could unleash a witch-hunt against anti-war forces in this country and against immigrants whose national origins are similar to the peoples under attack.
The progressive movement must stand firm on its principles in these trying times. It must fight for the right to seek and tell the truth to the people and not be swept along in a torrent of chauvinism and war frenzy.
The representatives of the military-banking-industrial establishment have no answers. They can only make the situation worse as the system they defend spreads poverty and instability around the world.
The movement must seek to implement a program of class solidarity among workers of all nationalities, religions, genders and sexuality. It must continue to combat national oppression, racism and bigotry of all kinds.
It must counter the reactionary vision of Fortress America, with its inane but dangerous “missile shield” and rapid militarization of society, with the struggle for a truly humane, democratic, just and equitable world run by the working people.