[mgj-discuss] movement shifts gears to stop war, but IFI's still dangerous

[Luke Kuhn]

       Lately, there has been so much focus on the war that the IMF, FTAA, 
and so on almost seem to be forgotten. There are a number of reasons for 
this. First of all, a US victory in Iraq with a full UN coalition would have 
made the IFI's less relevent if Bu$h could then start war after war to just 
take what he wants. Some republicans have even denounced the IMF and so on 
as irrelevent to ther strategy. While the big multinationls are not loyal to 
any one country and would prefer unrestricted trade, if the US is loyal to 
THEM and does their bidding they can do nearly as well even without it.

        Fortuately, Bu$h has fucked up so badly and been hit so hard in 
Europe that that scenario is now unlikely. Whatever happens in Iraq, Bush 
will finish the war with less influence in the rest of the world than he 
started-not more. Even he would have to accept that it would not take too 
many unilateral preemptiove wars before the UN would start building 
coalitions to militarily opposie the US. It is NOT the UN being made 
irrelevent on the world stage, it's BU$H that will have no foreign 
influence!   We've ALREADY WON that part of the war.

       That being the case, it will still fall to IFI's and trade treaties 
to exact the fruits of US Empire from Latin America and Africa. Hopefully, 
the wave of resistance to US policy born of the opposition to the Iraq war 
will start to carry over to US trade demands and US corporate wishes for the 
IMF, World Bank, and so on. European protestors seem to oppose not only the 
war but the whole pot-bellied, gluttonous, SUV driving US lifestyle and the 
price it is imposing on teh rest of the world. The French no more want US 
GMO foods than they want war in Iraq, for instance.  In fact, Bu$h's 
stubborn repudiation of Kyoto and general intranseigence on international 
concerns is being said by some analists to be coming back to bite him on the 
war.

        Therefore, the spring IMF/SOA/Colombia mobilization being 
spearheaded by LASC and supported by MGJ and others is a golden opportunity 
to LINK the war and trade issues like they have always been linked in 
Central American minds and use the backlash from Bu$h's war to cause some 
"not so collateral damage" to the whole rest of the Bu$h/neoliberal/neocon 
agenda.

        Don't get me wrong-stopping this war is the number one priority 
right now, but I think we can at the conclusion of the war-no matter who 
wins on the ground-that we can take over the offensive. There is almost NO 
chance that Bu$h can "win the peace" even if the war goes "well" and does 
not lead to house-to-house fighting and/or WMD counterstrikes. When Saddam 
Lite gets caught torturing people and the Kurds are  groound under a Turkish 
yoke, Bu$h is going to be in a world of shit. If we STOP this war, 
government in Iraq will be little worse, but 500,000 people don't get killed 
by US bombs and the momentum of global politics will shift so strongly to 
the left as to doom the FTAA, Plan Pueblo Panama, US oil ambitions in the 
Middle East, and so on. Perhaps gas will even go high enoug to get some of 
those SUV's off the road!




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