FLASH: Obama’s Speech on Terrorism—More War, Conflict in the Halls of Power, and a REAL Way Out
December 7, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
As we post this online issue of Revolution, on December 6, Barack Obama has just delivered what was billed as a major speech on terrorism. There is much more to analyze and speak to in this speech than we can address at this time, but the following basic points can and must be made now:
First, this was not a “peace” speech. Obama’s whole demeanor and tone was aimed at emphasizing that he is commander-in-chief of, and escalating, endless war and ramped up repression.
While the U.S. empire is at war with reactionary Jihadists who carry out terrorist acts and enforce brutal oppression where they have established power, this is most essentially a war for empire on the part of the U.S. And this is a war, on the part of the U.S., that every minute of every day subjects large parts of the world to an unrivaled reign of terror.
Here we can only begin to scratch the surface of what the U.S. “war on terror” has meant to vast sections of humanity. When Obama brags about dropping “thousands of bombs,” he is talking about a generalized reign of terror. He is talking about U.S. bombs that purposely destroyed a hospital in Afghanistan in November. Or bombs dropped by U.S.-ally Saudi Arabia that destroyed a hospital and a clinic in Yemen over the past two months. Or U.S. drones that circle cities and towns, striking with random terror – in many areas 90% of those killed by U.S. drones are not even the intended targets. When Obama talks about giving “training and equipment to tens of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian forces fighting ISIL on the ground,” he is talking about a motley collection of U.S.-backed armed reactionaries, many of them ISIS-like Jihadists, who are part of a terrible war of contending oppressors that has driven millions of people from their homes in Syria.
And Obama threatened stepped up surveillance of immigrants, stepped-up repression, and demanded, “Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us … decisively and unequivocally.”
Second, even all this is not satisfying a growing section of U.S. ruling class who see Obama’s strategy as not working. While not cohering around an alternative, they are howling that Obama needs to be even MORE warlike and demand more repression.
Finally, this is no time to rally behind any representative of the system, or to accept that the only alternatives are U.S. capitalism-imperialism or Islamic Jihad.
This is a system that is responsible for a world where a woman living in a prison-like dorm in an Apple factory in Asia is “used up” as a sweatshop worker by the time she is in her early 20s. A system where an undocumented worker -- hounded and without rights in New York City – risks or loses his life building a gleaming skyscraper. A system where a child in Pakistan sews soccer balls, where people in the slums of mega cities throughout the “Third World” pick through garbage dumps and sewage for scraps to survive.
The Islamic fundamentalists aspire to a bigger cut of the action in all this, and a different form of organizing and maintaining these horrors. But their aspirations are dwarfed by the crimes of the rulers of the U.S.
The rulers of this system are confronting a whole host of contradictions and challenges for which they have no answer. They are vicious and powerful but they do not have things under their control! They have no answers but the revolution does. There IS a real, positive, revolutionary alternative and NOW more than ever it is time for that to really get out into the world, as we oppose the crimes of the system.
Bringing Foward Another Way is an edited version of a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, to a group of Party supporters, in 2006. It is must reading for a serious understanding of what the U.S. "war on terror" is really about and how to bring forward a positive force in the world in opposition to both Western imperialism and Islamic Jihad.
As we say in the editorial in this issue:
“There is a way out of this madness! There is a viable and visionary alternative to, and strategy to break out of this deadly dynamic, and into a world where people can dream and breathe. That way out is being led by Bob Avakian (BA), and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA -- which he leads—as well as forces around the world taking up and promoting BA’s new synthesis of communism. This is a movement for revolution aimed at getting to a world without any exploitation and oppression, and the horrible conflict and bloodshed that is a product of, and enforces exploitation and oppression.
“As part of fighting to break out of the terrible ‘choices’ of Western imperialism or Islamic Jihad, and for everyone with a conscience: there needs to be a visible spirit of looking at the world from the interests of humanity. People in this country need to resist the crimes of ‘our’ government, and support people around the world who oppose both the U.S. empire and Islamic Jihad (for more on what that means, see ‘Why We Should NOT Root for Our Own Rulers... And Why It’s Better If They LOSE Their Wars’ by Larry Everest at revcom.us).
“Critical to breaking out of the disastrous cycle of escalating death and terror: It must become clear to the world that millions of people in the U.S. do not accept the actions and crimes of ‘our’ government, however they are ‘justified,’ that ratchet up intolerance and repression at home, and a cycle of death and terror in the world. Millions need to visibly manifest that these actions are not being carried out in our name.”
NO TO WAR – WHETHER DRONES, PLANES OR TROOPS…
NO TO REPRESSION AND SURVEILLANCE…
AND NO TO POGROMS, PARANOIA AND PERSECUTION!!
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