Protest on March 20

In the year since President Barack Obama became commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, several assumptions made earlier by millions of people who wanted no more wars — in the Middle East or elsewhere — have fallen.

So many placards and puppets carried at anti-war demonstrations before the election focused on President George W. Bush’s personality as the reason for the brutal and illegal invasions and occupations that were mercilessly beating down resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush was seen as shrewd but oafish — the war as a terrible mistake made by a crude, selfish and unprincipled man with narrow horizons. And, of course, there was always the sinister figure of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Now there is a very different presidential team in the White House. But the wars go on as before, even if the rationale given for them is more finessed and the patriotism not quite as blatantly jingoistic as before. Indeed, this Democratic administration is putting even more money into the pockets of the military-industrial-banking complex and has widened its wars to include Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen and a huge armada around Iran.

An election has never stopped a war. Forces much more powerful than mere elected officials are behind the gigantic Pentagon machine. It should be remembered that it was Richard Nixon — no flaming liberal, he! — who finally presided over the end of the Vietnam War. Like Bush, this criminal in the White House had tried every dirty trick to stay in office and justify the war. But during his presidency demonstrations were being supplemented with desertion, refusal to fight, and militant, mass action by youth and active-duty soldiers.

The Vietnamese continued to fight heroically, the world was outraged, and the U.S. ruling class finally decided it couldn’t win. So Nixon became the “statesman” who presided over the final pullout of troops.

It has taken some time — time in which tens of thousands of people have died — for the reality to sink in that the change of administrations is not going to bring an end to the Iraq war. In this period, the workers in the United States have been hit with the worst capitalist recession since the 1930s — one in which a short-lived recovery for the stock market brought no recovery to the job market, despite colossal bailouts to the banks and brokerage houses by the Obama administration.

While the wars grind on, public sector jobs are disappearing as states face huge budget cuts. On the federal level, the budget is being balanced on the backs of the workers even as Obama exempts the military from any freeze on spending.

The wars abroad and the economic misery at home cannot be viewed separately. They are two sides of the same coin. In both cases, the predatory class of super-rich exploiters is using the state to protect and guarantee its monstrous profits while the workers, in uniform or in civvies, are expected to put their money and their lives on the line.

The anti-war demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere called for March 20, the seventh anniversary of the Pentagon’s “shock-and-awe” assault on Iraq, will be an important gauge of whether the movement has been able to regain momentum in the new political environment.

Workers World endorses the March 20 actions, and will be participating in them around the country.