It is our Duty to Struggle

It is our Duty to Struggle
By Brian Becker


[The following is the text of Brian Becker’s presentation given on March 14, 2012, in Washington DC at the Cuban interests Section, for the launching of the book, “It is our Duty to Struggle”. The book is based on a Feb. 2012 meeting of Cuban leader Fidel Castro with intellectuals from 22 countries in Havana. Becker is the National Coordinator of the ANSWER – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism – Coalition.]

I want to thank Ambassador Bolaños for the invitation, I thank the Cuban people and the Cuban government and Fidel for this very important initiative, bringing together intellectuals to discuss that monumental topic, saving the planet from war and environment destruction, and giving the book the title, “We have a Duty to Struggle.”

It is so interesting that the Cubans talk to the intellectuals, saying we have the duty to struggle, using that kind of language. It can’t help but remind you of the spirit and the language of a certain German intellectual from 160 years ago. He would have considered himself a revolutionist and a fighter, but certainly was recognized as the premier intellectual at that time and since. He said philosophers have tried to interpret the world, our point is to change the world. The Cuban people and their leadership have challenged the intellectuals, and the people of conscience of the world, not to just observe the process of war, not to observe the cause of war, or the cause of environment destruction, but in observing, to prepare a program of action, so that the scourge of war and environmental destruction can be resisted, can be overcome.

That is the task at hand. On the question of war, we can’t identify the evil of war as simply the absence of peace, Rather, we need to decipher the fundamental causes of war, so that in identifying them we can address those causes. We are confronting a real crisis right now, as the forces of the U.S. military, overtly and covertly, and in league and in tandem with the EU and with the NATO countries and with the Israeli regime, are preparing for a multi-faceted assault against the sovereign government of Iran.

We have to look at that, and identify the problem, what is driving the United States and NATO powers to yet another war in this oil rich and strategic region? A war, as Fidel has pointed out over and over again in his reflections, and as the Cuban media has tried to alert us, a war that could have catastrophic consequences not simply for the Iranians, not just for the people of the region but indeed for the entire world.

Let’s use Iran quickly as a case study and look at the facts. Because from those facts we can derive a pattern and an understanding of what is causing this, so we can have a remedy. The U.S. and Israel and the NATO powers are asserting that Iran is a nuclear menace or is about to become a nuclear menace to its neighbors and the world. But Iran does not possess a nuclear weapon. Iran belongs to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran is the most inspected country in the world, having IAEA monitors come in and roam around with video monitors on-site, individual inspections over and over again.

Iran has never started a war. At the same time, those who are menacing Iran, who are imposing economic sanctions of the most severe type, and who are preparing for overt and covert operations have ample numbers of nuclear weapons. The United States has 10,000 nuclear weapons, 7,800 of which are deployed. The United States has spent $7 trillion on nuclear weapons since 1942. The United States is the only power in the world that has ever used nuclear weapons and it did so when it incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. The U.S. spends a trillion dollars a year on war, more than all the other countries in the world combined.

Israel, that treats Iran as an existential threat to its existence, has 200 to 300 nuclear weapons, Israel does not belongs to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, does not allow IAEA inspectors into its country to monitor its nuclear programs.

Likewise, Britain and France have hundreds and hundreds of nuclear weapons. So if Iran isn’t really a nuclear menace, if Iran is simply a targeted country, what drives the endless animosity and antagonism against Iran? We in the ANSWER Coalition believe that the real reason that there is such animus against Iran and the growing danger of war is not because Iran has nuclear weapons, nor is it because of “human rights abuses.” The United States supports the most anti-democratic countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia for instance.

The real reason is, in 1979 Iran had a revolution. It overthrew the proxy, puppet client government of the Shah, expelled the CIA from its positions of authority, was able to nationalize its own oil and take possession of that oil and use its resources for the development of Iran.

Iran has emerged over the last three decades in this resource-rich, geo-strategically important region as an independent government. And because it is an independent government it has been targeted by the former colonial powers and the imperialist powers for destruction.

When we look at what the source and danger of war is in the contemporary world, we have to identify the cause, not simply as the inability of people to live in peace, but the inability of a particular economic and social order, world capitalism, to live in peace. And in this case led by the US, as being unwilling to have a live-and-let-live attitude with other governments, should they try to assert their own independence, control their own land, labor and resources.

So we look at the past 60 years and you see in 1950 the US invaded Korea, and according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 million Koreans perished who would otherwise not have perished, Then 8 years later, the US launched the Vietnam war and millions of Vietnamese died.

In 1965 the US invaded the Dominican Republic. In 1982 the US invaded Lebanon and bombed it. In 1983, the US invaded Grenada. In 1989 it invaded Panama. In 1991 it invaded and bombed Iraq. In 1992 it intervened in Somalia under a humanitarian guise and 10,000 Somalis died. In 1995 the United States and NATO began bombing Bosnia. In 1999 they dropped 23,000 bombs and missiles on Yugoslavia until Kosovo was finally taken over by western powers. That was 1999. In 2001 there was the war in Afghanistan, in 2002 the invasion of Iraq, and in 2011 the bombing of Libya under the pretext of defending civilians under UN Resolution 1973.

If you look at this history of the last 60 years you can see that it is war after war after war by the same economic and social order that seeks to maintain the global status quo that allows it to aggregate its riches and keeps most of the world’s people in poverty.

So when we identify as the book does, the need to eliminate war, we have to eliminate the source and cause of war which we would say is world capitalism, which thrives on and makes war inevitable. That is the same economic order that puts profits first and environmental protection last, that removes all obstacles that remain in any way an impediment to the free flow of capital.

As we struggle for peace and struggle to save the planet, we have to recognize that the powerful forces of capitalist must be confronted not just in the periphery but here in the United States, where they have their central power and authority. We can see in the Occupy movement, we can see in the movements that are spreading around the world by poor people and working people and young people, the prospects for a new world, the prospects for change. As we fight income inequality, as we fight against the disparity that allows not just the 1% but the .1% who control so much, we must connect that struggle with the fight to save the planet from environmental catastrophe and from the scourge of endless war.

We thank the Cubans and the intellectuals who gathered in February in Havana. We hope to be able to promote this book. It’s out now in English as well as Spanish. It is a great opportunity to use this platform to bring the message of peace and environment protection and to root it in a bigger, more important and dominating political context.

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