Sometime last May a triumphant George W. Bush hired an aircraft carrier (at
the tax payer's expense) to announce to the nation that the war in Iraq was over
and America had won. Just four months later a more sober George Bush, his feet
now firmly on dry land, faced the television cameras to inform the American
public that they were in for a long, hard haul in Iraq, that they would have to
put up with a lot of pain and expense before the show was over.
Two years ago today the world watched in disbelief as two planes were
deliberately crashed into New York's twin towers. In a few minutes the dream
of America's invulnerability came crashing down in a pile of twisted, scorched
rubble. Two years later, the ruling class in the USA is making cynical use of the
anniversary to justify its warlike policies, while at the same time they are
burying the site of a great human tragedy in order to construct new offices for
the greater glory of profit and the market economy.
After the invasion of Iraq seemed to have run according to plan and
without meeting any great resistance, the anti-war movement declined.
Now it is beginning to pick up again. Among those actively campaigning
in the USA for an end to the occupation of Iraq are the "Military
Families Speak Out" (in which people who have relatives in the army are
organized), and "Veterans For Peace". The mood in the USA is changing.