From an American correspondant

The US bourgeoisie seem to have reinvented the United Front. Ironically the slogan now is "united we stand". Clearly the attack gives US imperialism an enormous advantage in the world. Any country not supporting the US will be an enemy of the US forcing every power to take sides. The clearest and most recent parallel was the apartment bombings in Russia that allowed the Russian government to continue pursuing its war in the Caucasus. The re-carving of the world by the Imperialist powers can only accelerate. This looks like it will favor the US once again. Now the military muscle of US capital will surround the Oil rich regions of Central Asia in a belt extending from Turkey to Pakistan.

In the eighties Dan Rather as the anchor of CBS evening news broadcasting live from the mountains of Afghanistan proclaimed today’s terrorists to be great freedom fighters against "Communism". ⁽¹⁾ At the start of the Soviet war in Afghanistan there was no end to the speculation of the media pundits concerning imagined scenarios of a third world war starting in the Persian Gulf region or Central Asia. In the main focal point of imperialist ambitions in the world the main change is the collapse of the Soviet Union.

During the War on Iraq the US was not nearly "united" as it is today. The ideological mobilization of the proletariat is far more complete than it has been in decades. Only a handful of the pacifists of the bourgeois left are even whimpering about "justice" and "alternatives to violence".

The news blackout is almost complete. All the media, newspapers, television, radio and Internet are devoid of information about this new war. The leader placed on the throne of Washington by the Supreme Court by the bourgeoisie issues these bizarre prerecorded statements on the television. Often with only a picture of his head in front of a flag showing. He is never allowed to say any more than a few sentences. It is fitting that this war against an amorphous enemy (any power not in the US camp), be declared by a hand puppet (the hand puppet Bush), that the "Defense Department" couldn’t defend itself or the very symbol of US dominance in world trade be reduced to a smoking hole in the ground. The horror of this attack is only a taste of the horror that capitalism has in store for humanity. Now the US bourgeoisie is free to indiscriminately slaughter millions of human beings anywhere it wants.

As bombs and cruise missiles rain down on the targets of the US State it is crucial to understand that workers do not have to accept the logic of bourgeoisie, the logic of imperialist war. While pacifists talk about peace they allow the capitalist warlords to continue making war. Very rarely in human history is there such a stark option before us, there must be revolution or workers will be forced to face more of the same - and worse. It is not enough simply to be anti-war; capitalism is an all-encompassing world system and must be overthrown worldwide.

(1) Internationalist Notes commentary: Our comrade is right. But even in the fifties, John Foster Dulles, Foreign Affairs Secretary of State thus described the Muslim population of the region:

Their spiritual beliefs cannot be reconciled with Communist atheism and materialism. That creates a common bond between us.