[IMC Bombay] Insaaniyat - BOYCOTT THE DOLLAR TO STOP THE WAR!

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Subject: If you agree, please act on this and pass it on...

   From: Rohini Hensman <rohinihensman@yahoo.co.uk> insaaniyat bombay

BOYCOTT THE DOLLAR TO STOP THE WAR!

What we are witnessing could be the beginning of World
War III. A coalition of states headed by the USA is
engaged in an act of aggression, in violation of
international law, in opposition to the United
Nations, and in defiance of world public opinion. The
leaders of the coalition have already warned that
their strikes will kill 10,000 innocent civilians, and
the actual death toll will no doubt be much higher; it
couldn’t possibly be otherwise, given the terrible
blitzkrieg that is being visited upon the helpless
people of Iraq and the disruption of their food and
water supplies. In other words, they announced in
advance that this is a terrorist war in which they
will knowingly be committing War Crimes and Crimes
Against Humanity. The Bush administration has also
made it clear that after Iraq, there will be attacks
on a large number of other countries. There are
striking similarities with the situation in the late
1930s. The attack, now as then, is not just on one
country or a few countries but on the international
community as a whole. And the price of appeasement,
now as then, will be a world war much more ghastly
than its predecessor.

A major difference, however, is that there is no
military solution to this war. The attack can be, and
to some extent has been, weakened by lack of
assistance from most states, and anti-war activists
must continue to put pressure on governments not to
provide any form of support to the aggressors. But
this has not prevented the war. Criticisms of the UN
for failing to stop the war are misplaced. How can the
UN pose a military challenge to a state whose
stockpiles of nuclear weapons can blow up the earth
several times over, a state which has demonstrated its
readiness to use weapons of mass destruction in
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam and indeed Iraq itself,
where 40 tons of depleted uranium left after the first
Gulf War caused an epidemic of cancer and birth
defects? In order to confront the US militarily, the
UN would need to have similar weapons, but this is
certainly not desirable: one of its most important
tasks is to rid the world of weapons of mass
destruction, not to amass them on its own account! The
importance of the UN lies in its moral authority, and
it is crucially important that this should be
strengthened by consistent opposition to a war that
violates its most fundamental principles. Kofi Annan
made a timid step in this direction when he said that
if the US and UK start a war without UN backing, this
will delegitimise not the UN – as Bush and Co. were
claiming – but the war itself.

This challenge to US domination of the UN would never
have been achieved without the massive worldwide
anti-war campaign. That is why it is so immensely
important to keep up the pressure on the UN, both
through demonstrations and through the appeal for an
emergency session of the UN General Assembly
(envisaged by ‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution 377 of
1950) to order a ceasefire, the withdrawal of foreign
troops from Iraq, and a resumption of weapons
inspections. (See www.ufp.ht.st for an online global
petition to this effect, and
www.waronfreedom.org/petition.html for addresses of UN
Ambassadors who can be petitioned individually.) The
UN should also be asked to withdraw the sanctions
against Iraq that have killed an estimated
one-and-a-half million civilians, more than half of
them children, and strengthened the dictatorial power
of Saddam Hussein over the Iraqi population by giving
him control over food supplies.

Let’s be realistic, however. None of this is going to
deter Bush and his associates, who have so far shown
as little regard for the UN and world opinion as
Hitler and his associates showed for the League of
Nations and world opinion. Those of us who are old
enough to have been part of the Vietnam solidarity
movement will remember that ultimately it was US
public opinion that brought the war to a halt, and
what turned US public opinion against the war was the
escalating number of troops coming back in body bags.
But such a development is not likely today, even
though US and UK troops, taken in by the lies of their
leaders, did not expect as much resistance as they
got. (Note the crude macho assumption that brute force
will inspire ‘shock and awe’ rather than anger and
contempt. How typical!) 

The problem is neatly summed up by the statistic that
some 42 per cent of the US public apparently believes
that Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. A cartoon shows Bush circling the ‘Q’ in IRAQ
and the ‘Q’ in AL QAEDA and drawing a line between
them to demonstrate proof of a link, but even this is
less illogical than the actual evidence he offered,
which was Osama bin Laden’s speech in which he
denounced Saddam as a heretic and infidel! If 42 per
cent of the US public sees this as proof of a link,
and many more support the US invasion even if it means
killing thousands or millions of Iraqis in their own
country, what can we do? Clearly, systematic
brainwashing has deprived these people of the power of
logical thought and moral behaviour, and therefore
appeals to reason or ethics will not work unless a
deeper change takes place.

The longer the war goes on, the more innocent victims
there will be, and the more there will be a terrorist
and fundamentalist backlash worldwide. Moreover, other
states may be tempted to follow the example of the
Bush axis, and invade territory they wish to annexe or
colonise. (Israel, of course, has done it already.)
The entire world could descend into chaos. So it is in
the interests of everyone (except for relations and
associates of Bush who have oil and armaments
interests) to end the war as soon as possible.
However, THE WAR WILL NOT END IF IRAQ IS CONQUERED: IT
WILL MERELY MOVE ELSEWHERE, just as it moved to Iraq
once Afghanistan was conquered. A likely next
candidate is Iran, which is just feeling its way back
to democracy after the US overthrew Mossadeq half a
century ago, since a democratic Iran is as much of a
threat to US hegemony now as it was then. 

The only way to put a definitive end to the war is to
force the Bush coalition to withdraw their troops back
to their own countries and keep them there. But how
can this be done? How is it possible to control a
rogue state with huge stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction which is on a megalomaniac mission to
conquer the world? In particular, what can those of us
in developing countries do? Some of our governments
have spoken out courageously against the war while a
few like Gloria Arroyo and Roh Moo-hyun have
distinguished themselves by backing it, but most have
evaded the issue by saying, in effect, ‘We are
helpless, there’s nothing we can do.’ But this is not
true; we can and must play our part in ending the war.

This is a situation where we need to adopt the tactics
of guerrilla warfare and hit at the enemy where it is
weakest. The weak point of the Bush state is its
economy: it’s in a mess, with a foreign debt so
massive that any developing country in a similar state
would have the IMF and World Bank breathing down its
neck to implement austerity measures. Bush, on the
contrary, is splurging an estimated billion dollars a
day on this war. How can he do it? By using US control
over international financial institutions and interest
rates, of course. But this would not work if the rest
of the world didn’t support the dollar by recognising
and using it as the de facto world currency. If that
support is withdrawn, the dollar will crash. 

Individuals can withdraw support by refusing to accept
dollars and asking for Euro or other hard currencies
of countries opposed to the war when they need foreign
exchange to travel abroad, or are being paid for work
done abroad. But it would make a much bigger impact if
Third World governments convert their dollar foreign
exchange reserves into Euro and/or other hard
currencies of countries opposing the war. Governments
who oppose the US-led war can see this as one way to
help stop it, by undermining the ability of the US to
pay for the war and bribe or blackmail other states
into supporting it. But even for the rest, it makes
sense, and the anti-war movements in those countries
should make them see that: the dollar is already
falling, and it is in their interest not to allow
their own economies to be pulled down with it.
Simultaneously, governments of countries to which the
US is indebted should stop extending the line of
credit if they wish to oppose the war in a practical
manner.

Disengaging the world economy from the dollar may
involve some immediate sacrifices, but we should
surely be willing to make those, if they result in
saving the lives of innocents. An added bonus is that
it will help to resolve the Palestine-Israel conflict:
without billions of dollars of US financial support,
Israel will be forced to recognise Palestine and live
in peace with it. Overall, in the long run, the result
will be a healthier world economy. 

People living in the US will of course have to
continue using the dollar, and that is absolutely
fine. The objection is not to the use of the dollar as
the national currency of the US, but to its use as
world currency, which thereby gives the US state the
power to wage genocidal wars all over the globe.
Opponents of the war in the US and allied countries
have done a magnificent job mobilising protest within
those countries and channellising worldwide protest to
put pressure on the UN, and there is now more need
than ever for them to continue doing this task. It
could be supplemented with a strategy of satyagraha,
non-violent civil disobedience, since this is indeed a
worldwide struggle for truth and freedom. In fact,
there have already been examples of this, with
schoolchildren playing a significant role. The answer
to those who object that such actions endanger the
lives of troops in Iraq is that the only honourable
way to safeguard their lives (especially given the
high rate of self-inflicted casualties!!) is to bring
them back immediately. It should also be pointed out
that while a few corporations are profiting from the
war, millions of ordinary people in the US, UK, and
other coalition countries are among those who are
paying the price. 

We, the people of the world, may appear to be
helpless, but we are not. Together we can stop the
attack on Iraq from developing into World War III. But
we need to be decisive, and act quickly!

Rohini Hensman




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