Please take a moment to make a generous contribution to the antiwar movement, as we build off the success of September 24, and organize for the Global Days of Protest March 18-20.

Call to Action

This is not our war. The Bush administration has sent hundreds of thousands of young people in the armed forces to Iraq to kill and be killed in a war for Empire. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves on earth. It has been targeted for destruction by the imperialists because the Iraqi people dared to nationalize their oil and other natural resources. Every rationale provided by the Bush administration for the war has been exposed as a lie. Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had no connection to the events of September 11.

The U.S., on the contrary, has nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons, has a military budget of $500 billion per year, constituting half of all arms production in the world. The U.S. government is the only one in the world that has ever used nuclear weapons, which it did against the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. More than 100,000 Iraqis have died since March 2003. Their country has been destroyed. Electricity, food, medicine, drinkable water all the things necessary to sustain life are now in a state of ruin. More than 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 20-30,000 have been horribly wounded. The U.S. government has spent $300 billion to carry out this war of aggression; that comes to more than $200 million every day.

The war and occupation of Iraq cannot be seen in isolation. The U.S. is actively attempting to destroy every government that resists the Empire. People in Iraq, in Palestine, in Haiti, in Venezuela, in Cuba, in the Philippines are resisting but the people of the United States must become their allies. Their resistance is part of the universal aspiration to live free from foreign domination or threats of a military or economic character.

While the Bush administration and Congress allocate limitless resources for their war for Empire, these so-called elected representatives of the people are carrying out massive cutbacks in Medicaid, Medicare, tuition aid, food stamps and other vital social programs. Of the $50 billion in projected cutbacks in the coming fiscal year, more than 1/3 are targeting programs designed to help young people, especially education programs.

This is a racist war. The Bush administration has targeted and demonized Arab and Muslim peoples. It is a racist war too because it constitutes a systematic diversion of resources from African American, Latino and other oppressed communities directly into the coffers of the corporate and banking establishment through the agency of military spending.

While the Bush administration cut hundreds of millions of dollars from flood and hurricane relief and from the restorations of the levees in New Orleans between 2001 and 2005, the same government reallocated these resources for the so-called “war on terrorism.”

Our massive mobilizations will not simply target the Bush administration. Bush and the neo-conservatives share the same fundamental class interests with all sectors of the leadership in the Republican and Democratic Parties. It is naïve and an exercise in misleadership to focus all of the attention of the rising progressive movement against the Bush administration. Such an orientation implies that the removal of Bush and his replacement by a Democrat will fundamentally alter the imperialist war drive and the assault against working class communities and young people at home. The Republicans and the Democrats alike are the twin parties of the war machine. They share the same corporate and banking contributors, their real constituents are big oil, the big banks and the military-industrial complex.

We have learned the lessons of the civil rights, women’s, LGBT, labor, and anti-war movements: Real change comes not as a gift from the politicians but from the sustained mass mobilization of the people. In order to realize the demand “Money for jobs, housing, education, and healthcare, Not for war and occupation” we must create a national grassroots movement.

* From Iraq to New Orleans, Fund People's Needs - Not the War Machine
* Stop the War in Iraq - Bring all the troops home now
* Military Recruiters out of our schools & communities
* End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine to Haiti
* Support the Palestinian People’s Right of Return
* Stop the Threats Against Venezuela, Cuba, Iran & North Korea
* U.S. out of the Philippines - U.S. out of Puerto Rico
* Stop the Racist, anti-Immigrant and anti-Labor Offensive at Home, Defend Civil Rights

March 20: Day of Youth & Student Resistance to Imperialism

Some people feel the Bush Administration is teetering on the edge of a cliff. This may be so, but it’s up   to a movement of the people to push it off. We will not be satisfied by replacing Bush with another capitalist politician to manage the global war for Empire. Our goal is to build a youth and student movement with a thoroughly revolutionary viewpoint that seeks profound social change.

On Monday, March 20, Youth and Student A.N.S.W.E.R. urges young people in high schools, college campuses, and in our communities to join together in a show of nationwide resistance against the criminal war and occupation of Iraq.

March 20 is not simply a protest, but a clarion call for the newly-emerging youth and student movement to take the next step on the path of building a revolutionary youth movement that identifies the system of capitalism and imperialism as the principal cause of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan; the threats against Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Korea and elsewhere; the intervention in the Philippines; the ongoing neo-colonial assault against Africa; and the positioning of U.S. troops in 750 installations located in 130 countries spread out across the globe.

Resist Imperialism!

• Endorse the March 20 youth and student day of resistance
• List a March 20 youth and student act of resistance in your school or community 

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-533-0417
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545