divided on Gulf war
The American ruling class is clearly the major force behind the War in the Gulf, yet there have been more obvious divisions there than in Britain about precisely what course to follow. TERRY CONWAY looks at the reasons for these differences and what they are likely to mean for the course of the war and the development of the anti-war movement. On 12 January, both houses of the US Congress approved resolutions under the War Powers Act of 1973 giving Bush authority to launch the war against Iraq. In the House of Representatives the margin was 250-183 and in the Senate 5247. The terms of the debate were clearly tactical, with all the resolutions that were put forward supporting the embargo and the 'right of the US to intervene militarily.
Similar discussions took place last year, most obviously in the testimonies made before the Senate Armed Services Committee in late November, where a number of former military and goverment officials urged Bush to give sanctions more time to work.
These splits are clearly about means, rather than ends, and reflect the precarious position of US imperialism in the world today. And the characters in the play partly reflect different assessments of the stakes and the balance of forces, and partly different and competing particular interests within the overall scenario.
The economic costs of the war are already astronomical and could easily climb to over $100 billion, a dangerous situation for an economy already deeply in trouble. On the other hand, particular sectors of US capital may well benefit. The US oil giants consider the Gulf crisis the most promising oppor tunity in a decade to influence critical decisions on how and where the United States will meet its energy needs... and to reverse what it considers excessive sensitivity to the environment'. (News York Times Business section, 19 August 1990).
Days after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the oil industry intensified lobbying efforts to drill in environmentally protected and ecologically sensitive areas. As a result, the Senate approved an amendment to open up lands for exploration that were previously off limits, including the Arctic National Wildlife SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30, February 1991
GULF SPECIAL Refuge in Alaska, resulting in loud protests from environmental groups.
There are difficulties for other sectors of the economy, even where the war calls for increases in production. The rate of use of high-tec weaponry so far in the air war has been enormous, and it is not at all obvious that production can keep pace with use. This was one reason why at least key sectors of the US ruling class were banking on the air war being won swiftly -something that clearly hasn't happened.
But the consequences of what looks sure now to be a prolonged military conflict are not only cconomic, but political. The antiwar movement, before one shot was fired in anger, was already mobilising the sort of numbers brought out only at the height of the Vietnam War, long after the body bags had started to come home. While it is true, and not surprising that public opinion has swung more firmly behind Bush since Jan 15, nevertheless the mobilisations against the war remain impressive, and their potential still greater.
When the news broke on US television that Bush had decided to launch the war, 30,000 protesters blocked San Francisco's Bay Bridge. On 19 January, 75,000 marched in San Francisco, 20,000 in Los Angeles and 15,000 in Washington. On 26 January demonstrations of over 150,000 people took place both in Washington and San Francisco. The marches were youthful, with large numbers of students and of Vietnam veterans, and significant contingents from the Central America and Palestine Solidarity movements and from the lesbian and gay and black communities. On the Washington march, there were marchers behind banners from the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers union, the United Electrical Workers, the Service Employees Interational Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The disproportionate involvement of Black people in the armed forces is already an issue: many in the Afro-American community understand that a larger number of blacks will die in Bush's war, as they did in Vietnam. While representing only 12% of the population, black people make up over 30% of the ground troops sent to guard Saudi Arabia's oil fields.
Bush meanwhile painfully underscored
No Vietnam War in the GULF! the reality of american democracy" for black people by his veto of the 1990 Civil Rights Act. These issues were taken up in the debate by among others, Democratic Congressman Major Owens who said "These are the same people who are penalised when President Bush refuses to pass a civil rights bill because if has a quota - he claims it has a quota. There is some kind of ugly reverse quota operating when 33% of the troops on the front line are poor and African American*.
It was because of his acute awareness of growing dissent, that Bush on 30 November tried to portray his big stick as an olive branch when he vowed " to go the extra mile for peace before crossing the line in the sand.
There have been debates too, on the likely military course of the war. Sam Nunn, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and one of the movers of a resolution in the House on 12 January, which argued for the continuation of sanctions, expressed concem on this question.
*...No one can say whether war will last five days, five weeks or five months. We know we can win and we will win. No doubt about that.
Our policy and our military planning. however, cannot be based on an expectation that the war will be concluded quickly and easily.
So while Bush gained his majority on 12 January, and currently has the majority of the "American public" behind his war, the situation is full of difficulties and dangers. While in no way giving credence to the motives of those who would have attacked the people of Iraq, the Middle East and the whole of the "Third World" with continued economic sanctions, the anti-war movement must be alert to exploit every division in ruling class for our own ends - the stopping of this bloody war.
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