Hands off Iraq!

Issue 

Hands off Iraq!

The government of the United States is openly planning still another military attack on the people of Iraq. Once again, the most powerful military machine in history is to be turned against helpless civilians, whose murder will be prettified by its criminal authors as "collateral damage".

There is something particularly obscene in the US claim of a right to prevent destroy Iraq's ability to create "weapons of mass destruction" — and using the latest high-technology weapons of mass destruction to do so. The US government is still the only one in world history to have used nuclear weapons against another country, and it has used chemical and probably biological weapons in its wars against colonial revolutions.

Moreover, the necessary information to create nuclear, chemical or biological weapons is widely available. A country can really be denied the ability to create such weapons only by the total destruction of industrial infrastructure and the denial of any scientific education to its population.

This may be what Washington has in mind. Since 1991, the US and its allies have consciously sought to starve the Iraqi people into submission. Seven years of the US/UN weapons inspection program have brought no end to the savage economic blockade. Saddam Hussein's recent refusal to cooperate with the inspectors seems designed to force some sort of compromise that would include an end to the sanctions.

There is no justification for continuing the blockade, let alone renewing US military attacks. "Hands off Iraq!" should be the demand of progressive people around the world.

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