This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.

Consription update:


Candidates deny need for draft; actions suggest otherwise

by mim3@mim.org and mousnonya

President Bush mentioned the phrase "all- volunteer" military during the presidential debate September 30th and the Democrats Kerry and Edwards also claim there is no need for a draft despite the ongoing war in Iraq and the rest of the Third World. At MIM, we would say not to trust politicians running for office, but to trust what is happening on the battlefields--volunteer soldiers becoming tired and anxious to get home.

Already reports have surfaced of hundreds of soldiers not returning to the Army instead of re- enlisting as required on September 22nd. Less than two-thirds of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) reported as required. 14 received AWOL disciplinary status.(1) One deserter from North Carolina has asked for asylum in Kanada,(2) which we hope Kanada's people see to giving.

We celebrate the resistance of the u.$. military to the unjust war on the people of Iraq. Though FOX News refers to Iraqis as "terrorists" for fighting the U.$. invasion, it is really just Iraqi nationalists kicking out the occupier. A similar thing would happen in most countries in the world facing invasion.

As a result of the Iraqi people's valiant resistance to exploiter-occupation, the National Guard is falling short by 5000 recruits this year.(3) The Army has also just announced a reduction of its recruitment standards, including an increased willingness to take people who have not completed high school education.(4) There is also talk about reducing tours of duty to six months. Unless the anti-war movement wins through a big fight, all the difficulties in recruiting point to a draft coming, especially as Republicans and Democrats make plans for Iran, Syria, northern Korea etc.

Vice-Presidential candidate Edwards claims that the united $tates will not have a draft if the Democrats win.(5) Kerry earlier had already said that he wanted to get the united $tates out of Iraq as soon as possible.(6)

If bourgeois politicians could be trusted then "politician" would not be a synonym for "liar" in most people's minds. 38% of the public already believes that a draft is coming in a second Bush term in office and 18% in a Kerry term in office.(7)

We would love to believe lying liberals. Kerry did get shot up playing imperialist roulette. He did protest the Vietnam war. But the fact is: Kerry and Edwards are the rich front men for rich white men everywhere. The fact is: The united $tates has not got enough troops to occupy Iraq. The fact is: The united $tates is addicted to oil like a junkie is hooked on heroin (though this is unfair to junkies: most junkies aren't mass murderers--unlike unkkkle scam). And the fact is: The united $tates, like a junkie, will lie, cheat and steal just to get a fix. Kerry, a politician who is not put forward by a vanguard party is probably lying. Even if Kerry is not lying, the class he represents won't just blithely let him walk out of Iraq! That's why he is now campaigning to "win" the war in Iraq partly by expanding the military.

Oil is used in agriculture (fertilizer, plus oil and gas for farm machinery) transport, heating, plastics, explosives and the list goes on and on. Oil is the primary input of so much production that whenever the oil price has spiked (1973-1974, 1977-1979, 1990-1991, 2002-present) the economy has gone bad: recession has always been the result of expensive oil. Unlike Bush I, Bush II has proven unable to get the price of oil down, either directly with a conveniently generated imperialist war (Gulf War II has already failed thanks to repeated sabotage of oil pipelines that are basically indefensible(8)) or indirectly with a proxy war amongst the Third World.

If Bush loses the election we at MIM think it will be because U.$. voters decided he failed to murder and bribe the right people to get the price of oil down. There is not a great opposition to the war in principle. The basic lust for Third World resources in the united $tates is one more reason MIM never campaigns for the economic demands of Amerikans. A demand for higher pay at any legal u.$. workplace only creates a political atmosphere where people also demand wars for oil. Amerikans need to understand that it is their economic demands throwing the global environment and military situation out of wack.

The demands that we do support are those of people who want to live and not participate in imperialist war. We side completely with the protests of the middle classes which are starting to see their kids come back from Iraq in aluminum boxes or missing arms, legs, eyes, and who knows what else.

MIM offers Amerika a clear choice based on the cold realities: Continue to suck the lifeblood from the Third World, knowingly or not. Or, get in step with the rest of the planet and oppose the vicious vultures roosting in Washington. We say: Resist the war with all your might and main! It is the lives of YOUR children, YOUR cousins that are on the line: NOT the lives of the rich, lying pigs in Washington or any of their family. And Kerry is just one more rich pig who was stupid, naive, or shrewd enough to play imperialist roulette and survive.

MIM cannot endorse Kerry, because that would be wishful thinking. Objective facts will force him both to stay in Iraq and to get the troops for it -- one way or another.

MIM says: Don't vote-- organize! Resist the brutal, greedy, and unnecessary wars waged by the First World against the Third World whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Peru or anywhere else the imperialists think they can squeeze out blood-money!

Notes:
1. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-09-27-reserves_x.htm
2. http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/09/25/642781.html
| 3. New York Times 24Sept2004, p. 16.
4. New York Times 1Oct2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/01/politics/01recruit.html
5. "Edwards: No Military Draft if Dems Win," JENNIFER BUNDY, Associated Press http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1963&e=11&u=/ap/20040915/ap_on_el_pr/edwards 15Sept2004.
6. "Kerry vows to withdraw troops from Iraq," Mon 6 September, 2004 Patricia Wilson http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=578182§ion=news Kerry said: ""We want those troops home and my goal would be to try to get them home in my first term and I believe that can be done."
7. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6159637/site/newsweek/
8. "IRAQ'S OIL MINISTER PLEDGES BETTER SECURITY BUT JITTERS -- AND HIGH PRICES -- PERSIST" Susanna Loof, Associated Press "Saboteurs wrecked the recently repaired pipeline junction Tuesday. The fire set off a cascade of power blackouts that underlined the frustrations faced by U.S. engineers trying to upgrade northern Iraq's creaky oil facilities in the face of relentless bombings." Sept. 14, 2004 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/9667905.htm?1c