If we are to believe the last two important public appearances of George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, the two of them are working and praying for peace. Both of them claim they are calling on their gods to help them win peace, but at the same time they are preparing yet another war. Neither George W. nor Saddam have ever been embarrassed by themselves and they certainly aren't now. Their cynicism is overt, clear and unabashed. These two men are certainly despicable and dangerous individuals, that workers across the world are learning to despise more and more as political events unfold in ever more deadly directions. However, this justified hatred towards the two warmongers must not make us forget that they are nothing more than the personifications of the competing interests of two rival national ruling classes. To quote the 19th century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, these two rival ruling classes are, by waging war, about to effect 'a continuation of politics by other means'. So, as individuals, in all things fundamental, Bush and Hussein are no more than mere cogs in the huge capitalist war machine. The causes of this war are thus not of an individual character but are to be found in the nature of the capitalist profit system itself.

What does this mean today? Amongst other things it means that the US wants to rest control of vast oil reserves away from the Iraqi ruling class to assure its long term supply of this strategic material and in this way hopefully jump-start the failing American economy. Furthermore, this control of oil supply would give them leverage in regards to their imperialist economic rivals. It permits them to continue to profit from the huge financial revenues it gains from the international use of the US dollar for the commerce of oil. It also means, effectively taking over the important Iraqi water supply, the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers and their affluents to realize the Peace Pipeline (sic) project that could greatly benefit US regional allies. It finally means taking greater geo-strategic hegemony over the whole region; a hegemony the Iraqi bourgeoisie has been claiming for itself for many years. If 'war is the continuation of politics by other means', in the imperialist phase of capitalism we have come to learn that peace itself is the continuation of war by other means... In this sense, it is useful to examine precisely who are the voices of 'capitalist peace' in the present situation. Among the main champions of 'peace' we have the ruling classes of France, Russia, China et al. who are presently causing quite a stir at the Security Council of the United Nations. Is it really necessary to remind the world of the role of French imperialism in the Ivory Coast today or to recall France's actions in relation to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda? Have we already forgotten the plight of the people caught up in the civil war between Chechnya and Mother Russia? Does somebody out there really think that the elder vultures of the Chinese Stalinist Party stand for any kind of justice and peace? Indeed, the whole General Assembly of the United Nations itself is nothing more than a den of thieves. Peace will never be attained through the United Ruling Classes of the World.

Who then are the forces of peace and where are they to be found? In the demonstrations we have attended in the US and Canada, some Arab nationalist and 'progressive' (Stalinists and some Trotskyites) forces have been claiming that one of the forces of peace is the Iraqi ruling class itself; that we must rally to and defend the 'victimized' State of Iraq. This we will never do for the obvious reason that the Iraqi regime has time and time again demonstrated its own imperialist appetite by declaring two successive wars of aggression on its neighbouring countries and countless other atrocities against workers and peasants inside its own borders. Others place hope on the traditional peacekeeping role of Canada or in Democratic Party hacks in the US. Here again it is quite clear that past Canadian peace-keeping work has never been motivated by anything else than the Canadian bourgeoisie's appetite for any new markets it can penetrate. As for the US Democratic Party, its whole bloody past indicates to us that it is no guarantee of a peaceful future, far from it! The Canadian NDP speaks of peace but does not condemn its social-democratic brother Blair's call for war. Jesse Jackson eloquently calls for an end to bloodshed but refuses to break with the Democratic Party that is the joint alternate manager of US imperialism. While American liberal pacifists leaders are arguing that 'dissent is an American value that must be supported', Quebec and Canadian nationalist pacifists wave Quebec and Canadian (and sometimes French) flags while the main speakers call to break with American values... Whatever the good intentions and the peaceful inclinations of the millions who are marching for peace every week (and we do not doubt their good will), it is quite clear that the 'pacifist' movement that is marshalling them could very well help march them into another war in the very near future. If you doubt this then just look at how the liberal pacifist movements that preceded World War One and World War Two ended up.

The only real force of peace on this earth is composed of those of us that have the least to lose from the end of the capitalist system that is the genesis; the mother of all wars. That force is the international working class. It is the class that suffers the most from capitalist wars, as it is the class that suffers the most from capitalist peace. It is the only class that has the potential leverage that can overthrow the exploiting class and build a new society based on the negation of capitalism itself. Thus against capitalist war and against capitalist peace we support the class war as it is the only way forward out of the deadly cycle of accumulation, crisis and imperialist war. This assertion however leaves many unresolved questions. How does the class attain conscience of itself and its capacities? How does the class organize? Is there any need for a vanguard party and what is its relation to the rest of the class? How do we avoid the barbaric pitfalls of Stalinism, etc.? The publishers of Internationalist Notes, the Internationalist Workers' Group are willing to discuss all of these questions with anyone who is willing to take up the fight against capitalism. We have our own program based on the whole experience of the international communist movement, particularly that of the Italian Communist Left. However, our willingness to fight on the basis of our program is not an impediment to struggle in solidarity with other forces, on the condition that they have not or are not compromised with liberal and class-collaborationist schemes of 'protesting' war and capitalism rather than fighting to eliminate them! We fully intend to work with such forces in building class war committees against imperialist war everywhere we can. Our old slogan is more alive and relevant than ever:

Workers of all countries unite!