Editorial
The Year 2002 - The People's Struggles Continue to Develop
The past year has been a momentous year in may respects for the peoples of the world struggling for peace and social justice. The upcoming year holds the promise for developments of even greater significance.
At this time last year, the United States was consolidating its grip over Afghanistan. Despite all of the grandiose declarations by the Americans that they would bring peace, security, democracy and prosperity to Afghanistan, the war continues, security is non-existent, the warlords are in control of the government and the economy remains in a shambles. The main concern of the Americans at this time appears to be how they can make a graceful exit from Afghanistan so as to concentrate all of their attention on Iraq. Just as countless foreign invaders of the past, the U.S. is learning that it is very easy to enter Afghanistan, but much more difficult to leave.
In fact, it would be fair to say that the United States has failed to achieve a single objective from the list it proclaimed at the beginning of its "war on terror". Osama bin Laden reportedly remains at large, along with most of the top Taliban leadership. The al-Qaida organization remains intact, and there are reports that it is training a new crop of recruits in Pakistan, near the Afghan border. The alliance of warlords cobbled together by the U.S. is collapsing and a number of America's recent Afghan allies are reported to be taking up arms against it.
Despite its failure to consolidate its gains in Afghanistan, the Bush administration has adopted a stance as if Afghanistan did not exist. Instead, it is desperately looking for a pretext for war against Iraq and there are strong indications that it may dispense with a pretext altogether. The new Bush Doctrine announced in September openly states that the national interest of the United States is the only pretext needed. That document declares that the U.S. will utilize pre-emptive military strikes against any country in the world which dares to develop the capacity to challenge its overwhelming military superiority. It amounts to a formal declaration that the United States is not only an imperial power, but that it is the sole imperial power on the face of the earth. Of course, this declaration does not go over very well with the other countries which also aspire to be imperial powers, such as Germany, Japan, France, Russia and China. The Bush Doctrine has succeeded only in fanning the flames of the simmering inter-imperialist contradictions.
However, the Bush Doctrine, as well as the sheer arrogance of the Bush administration, has succeeded in stirring up opposition from more than just its imperialist rivals; the peoples of the world have also been drawn into motion. Demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people opposed to U.S. imperialism have taken place in Europe, Asia, Latin America, as well as within the United States itself. A new struggle for national sovereignty is sweeping Latin America and opposition to U.S. domination is growing around the world, including in Canada. This struggle for national sovereignty is similar to the national liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, but at the same time much more profound. This struggle is aimed not at the old European colonialists, but directly at U.S. imperialism and its international economic order. This makes this struggle not only nationalist, but also internationalist, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist. It is shaping up as a struggle of historic proportions, a struggle which will define the world of the 21st century.
The opposition to U.S. imperialism and its neoliberal agenda has already resulted in the downfall of four South American governments identified with U.S. interests - Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina. Popular governments have been already elected by overwhelming majorities in the first three, with elections slated for Argentina later this year. Repeated attempts by the CIA and pro-American forces to stage a coup d'etat in Venezuela have met with failure. The most recent attempt is a month-long "general strike" by Venezuelan elites which is still going on.
During the past year, the situation in the Middle East has further deteriorated. In the face of a concerted political campaign launched by a coalition of Zionists and right-wing religious fanatics, the Bush administration has backed away from its earlier efforts to defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the use of political deception. Lacking any coherent policy of its own, the U.S. has simply adopted the Israeli genocidal policy towards the Palestinians. In flagrant disregard for UN Security Council resolutions demanding an immediate withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) invaded and re-occupied the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, murdering hundreds of civilians with American-made weapons. The ongoing commission of war crimes by the IDF and the massive violations of human rights in the occupied territories have resulted in further isolation of the Israeli-U.S. policy.
The U.S. has also opened a "second front" in the "war on terror" in the Philippines and has created a crisis situation on the Korean Peninsula by failing to deliver two nuclear power plants promised in a 1994 agreement between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States. In other words, during the past year the Bush administration has managed to stir up resentment and opposition in virtually every corner of the globe. Blinded by its enormous military might, the Bush administration is determined to turn into reality its dream of "permanent war without borders", apparently oblivious to the fact that the U.S. economy is on the verge of collapse and threatens to take the entire American Empire down with it.
In Canada, during the past year a subtle, but significant, development took place within the people's movements. The movement against neoliberal globalization took on a distinctly anti-imperialist character and began to take up issues related to the mechanisms of U.S. domination of Canada, rather than confining itself merely to the role of a solidarity movement in support of struggles elsewhere. The movement for peace, of necessity, also became overtly anti-imperialist in its outlook. To an certain degree these two movements have begun to merge into two aspects of the same movement. In addition, during the past year the movement for Canadian sovereignty, largely dormant since the 1980s, emerged once again as a potentially major force in Canadian politics. Encompassing such diverse issues as economic and political independence, democracy and peace, this movement for sovereignty, or more correctly for people's sovereignty, holds great promise as a movement which is capable of uniting all of the currents of opposition to the status quo into a force which can actually be effective in bringing about changes in the political culture of Canada.
All in all, the past year marked the further deepening and broadening of the crisis of imperialism and the further development and strengthening of the anti-imperialist forces around the world. The year we are entering is shaping up to be a year of monumental struggles, a year full of danger for the peoples, but also a year in which many opportunities for advance will present themselves. As we enter our fourth year of publication, Modern Communism wishes all of our readers and supporters and all peoples fighting for social progress further victories in the New Year.