◇　Faced With High Unemployment
　　　　  The Increase of Unemployment Insurance Fees and Reduction of Benefits

◇　On the Concept of Bank Deposits and Currency
         Currency, Capital, and Bank Deposits: Responding to Hayashi

From the article of 'Petrel'
No.894 / Nov 17, 2002

Please send us your opinion and the impression about this article without reservation.

 The U.S. Has No Right To “Punish” Iraq
The Greatest “Danger” is the Hegemonism of the Bush Government  

On November 8, the UN Security Council, with the unanimous backing of 15 countries, agreed to a resolution concerning the problem of weapons inspections in Iraq. The resolution was backed by the threat that Iraq would face an armed invasion (the overthrow of the Hussein regime by force of arms) if it did not agree to the harsh inspections. The past ten years have seen an increased tendency on the part of the U.S. to do whatever it wishes as the world’s only superpower. But where will this lead the world?

The U.S. is Also a “Dangerous” State

The issue centers on the Iraqi government’s possible possession or development of “weapons of mass destruction” (such as nuclear or biological weapons), and the refusal of the “international community” to allow this. This same “logic” is being applied towards the North Korean state.

Of course, there is no question that weapons of mass destruction are “dangerous” and must be eliminated for the safety of humanity (not just the safety of the United States). For centuries in the long history of humanity, there were no such barbaric …, and this must be so again in the future.

However, if one wishes to speak of “weapons of mass destruction,” other countries, most notably the U.S. itself, should be considered. But the United States brazenly ignores its own weapons of mass destruction—which outnumber those of Iraq by a thousand fold—while lecturing to other countries about the need to restrict or eliminate such weapons.

The rationale behind this is that such weapons are a threat to U.S. safety. The heavy-handed and smug attitude of this “ultra-imperialist” state is incorrigible.

Couldn’t it also be said that the weapons of mass destruction the U.S. possesses are a threat to the safety of other nations? On what possible basis could one would say that these weapons do not pose such a threat?

If Iraq is a reactionary state, the same thing could be said of the United States. If the world cannot be “safe” without Iraq abandoning its weapons of mass destruction, then the United States, Russia, China, and other states must abandon their own weapons of mass destruction.

Similar to Postwar Japan

Just as Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” have become an issue today, so in the past, North Korea’s weapons were made an issue, not only by the U.S. but also China and Japan, and calls were made for the restriction or destruction of these weapons.

Since Japan does not currently possess nuclear weapons, it might seem that they have a right to tell North Korea to give up such weapons of mass destruction. However, Japan is a state that exists under the American “nuclear umbrella,” and is thus able to take an overbearing attitude towards North Korea,

What the United States claims to be carrying out in Iraq is, essentially, the same thing that they did in Japan in 1945 (crushing the aggressive policies, eliminating a despotic system, and “forcing” a democratic system on the country, etc.). However, this time the Japanese rightwing is supporting this same thing that the U.S. is trying to do to Iraq. This reveals how unprincipled they are.
　
They are passionate about nationalism in Japan, but look coolly on (or rather despise and criticize) the nationalism of Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-Il, which reveals that their attitude is totally lacking in universality, reflecting a narrow and craven mentality.
　
We think, as defenders of the class standpoint of the workers and internationalism, that the United States would need to renounce its own weapons of mass destruction before demanding that Iraq do the same. Otherwise, there is no way to defend such a position as having “universal validity” (i.e. no way to convince the working class throughout the world). 

Imperialism is Historically Bankrupt

Bush arbitrarily introduces the concept of “the right of self-defense,” but fails to provide any concrete evidence—or even any “circumstantial evidence”—to back up the claim that Iraq could attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

There is talk of a “preemptive attack” against Iraq, but such an idea cannot be said to be in line with “international law” or with the spirit of the UN. Iraq’s government can be describe as reactionary and despotic, but there are many such states in the world today, but the United States cannot be consistent without calling for preemptive attacks against all such states (far from doing this, the U.S. is lining up with the despotic Saudi government!).
　
Moreover, the United States only makes use of the UN when it suits its own interests, viewing their own interests as “absolute” and advocating a preemptive strike against Iraq on the basis of its own judgment. If the UN opposes such action, they simply ignore the UN. For the U.S. there is no such thing as the UN standing over the U.S. Rather, the UN is nothing more than a tool created by the United States for the U.S. imperialist, big capital state.

The bourgeois states that follow behind the United States fear that as a result of the U.S. ignoring the UN and showing contempt for “international law,” the impression will arise of the attack against Iraq being barbaric—that the world today is lawless—and they hope to preserve at least a formal semblance of an international “order” by issuing a UN resolution that would in effect give the U.S. carte blanche for its brutal acts.

The maneuvers by the U.S. and the UN to attack Iraq reveal that the world today is a world governed by big capital and barbaric imperialism. The fact that the Iraqi state is reactionary doesn’t change the truth of this one bit.

However, the working class of the world believe that the age of imperialism is only one stage of human history, which will ultimately be swept aside.

U.S. imperialism is not invincible and almighty, and is revealing every day that it exists in contradiction.  U.S. imperialism is strong because U.S. monopoly capital exploits the entire world, but the development of the imperialist state itself undermines the position of the United States in the world.
　
As the U.S. increasingly plays the role of policeman of the world, its power as an imperialist state will suffer setbacks and dissolution. This is because U.S. economic power is weakening, and the large-scale military actions throughout the world cannot compensate for this trend. 

Even with the Gulf War, the U.S. was unable to pay the costs of the war on its own, and was obliged to borrow billions of dollars from Japan and other countries. And this trend is only becoming more pronounced. The fact that the burden of the expansion of imperialistic military actions weakens the imperialist state, and hastens its demise, is a “historical law” that was clear from classical times (consider the fate of the Roman Empire, or the English “Empire” in the 20th century).

Through the expansion of its imperialist policies, the rule of the United States will be shaken. For this reason, the U.S. has called on other states to pay for the cost of its own imperialism, but this will undermine its theory of “preemptive attacks” and “self-defense.” By printing more dollars in an attempt to cover the costs of imperialism, the U.S. is preparing the way for worldwide inflation, which will also weaken the global economic system ruled by the U.S., spurring anti-Americanism throughout the world. Just as the downfall of the rule of big capital is inescapable, the downfall of the imperialist state is an inevitability.

(Translated by Roy)