Oppose U.S. Imperialist-Led Aggression in the Gulf!

By the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement

            U.S. imperialism, aided by the world's other major imperialist powers, is frantically assembling a massive military force in Saudi Arabia and in the waters of the Gulf. There is every reason to expect that the U.S. imperialists, itching for a fight, will unleash bloody aggression and perhaps a full-scale war with Iraq.

            U.S. imperialism is using the pretext of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait to justify its aggression. But it is the U.S. itself that has repeatedly trampled on other nations and which takes particular delight at using its massive military might against weak and defenseless victims, such as Grenada and Panama. It is the U.S. which brutally occupied the southern portion of Vietnam and killed millions in their failed attempt to suppress the people of that country. And it is the U.S. which arms and finances the Zionist state of Israel, whose very existence is based on the illegitimate occupation of Palestine and which periodically lashes out violently at the peoples of the neighbouring states.

            The real purpose of the U.S.-led aggression is to clamp down on the whole region, attempt to terrorise the peoples of the Middle East and the whole world, and strengthen their world Empire. The U.S. has even threatened the use of nuclear weapons in the event of hostilities. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, which unites genuine Maoist parties and organisations around the world, including in the Middle East and in the U.S. itself, resolutely condemns the aggression of the U.S. hoodlums and its partners-in-crime and calls on the proletariat and the oppressed peoples to oppose them.

            The masses in Iraq and throughout the Middle East and the Arab world have understood that this imperialist aggression is against their interests and they burn for the chance to fight gun in hand for their national liberation against the U.S., the other imperialist powers, the reactionary Arab regimes and the Zionist state of Israel. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement supports all such resistance.

            But the masses of these countries have seen their hopes, their struggles, their sacrifices repeatedly betrayed by impostors who wrap themselves in the national garb and claim to oppose imperialism and Zionism but always end up stabbing the people in the back. Sadaam Hussein is another of these reactionary impostors -- for many years he has been up to his neck in dealings with imperialists, East and West, and his crimes are numerous. He who uses chemical warfare in his own country to suppress the national aspirations of the Kurdish people will not and cannot lead the Iraqi and Arab masses in fighting for genuine liberation from imperialism.

            Ridding the Middle East of imperialism and Zionism cannot be done unless the proletariat and the peoples hoist their own banner, that of New Democratic Revolution and Peoples' War. They must rely on their own efforts and not count on "help" from imperialists and reactionaries, or plan on "purchasing" liberation with the revenues from oil, that curse on the Middle East.

            For years, opportunist forces in the Middle East, as elsewhere, claimed that only by relying on the Soviet Union could the U.S. be opposed, and these same forces bitterly opposed the Maoists who always told the truth: the USSR is a social-imperialist power and no friend of the oppressed. Now the USSR feels its imperialist interests are best served by allying themselves with the U.S. in the Gulf, and the bitter fruit is seen today when the Soviet's protege, Assad of Syria, who postured as a big anti-imperialist, is shamelessly participating in the U.S.-sponsored aggression against the Arab masses.

            U.S. imperialism can be defeated. History has shown that the masses of people themselves can defeat the most powerful of enemies, and this same lesson is coming alive again in Peru, where the Communist Party of Peru, a participant of our Movement, has been successfully waging war for ten years with weapons captured from the enemy and with the support of the masses, without a drop of aid from reactionaries and imperialists.

            Behind the bravado of the U.S. imperialists is a frantic effort to respond to the deepening crisis of the world imperialist system. The U.S. is desperate to repair and strengthen its web of domination, exploitation and murder in order to continue feasting on the wealth produced by the masses all over the world. The Soviet Union, Britain and France feel obliged to take part so as to protect their own interests and not be excluded from the banquet hall. Reactionaries like Mubarak of Egypt have been told that the time has come to pay back their debts to their imperialist masters with the blood of their own people.

            All of this will mean hardship and suffering for the people, but more importantly, it means better conditions for the people to strike back at the source of hardship and suffering -- imperialism and reaction -- by waging revolutionary struggle. The revolutionary communists must strive to put themselves at the head of the struggle of the masses against U.S. imperialist aggression, help the masses to distinguish their friends from their enemies in the course of the battle, and step up their efforts to establish genuine proletarian vanguard parties. Now is the time for the proletariat and the people to start writing their own history.

17th August 1990