Statement of the Workers' Communist Party of Denmark (APK), August 29, 2003
“No nation can be neutral in the struggle between civilization and chaos,” US President George Bush told military people from the American Legion in St. Louis on August 26.
“We have adopted a new strategy for a new kind of war. We will not wait for known enemies to strike us again. We will strike them and their camps or caves or wherever they hide before they hit more of our cities and kill more of our citizens. We will do everything in our power to deny terrorists weapons of mass destruction before they can commit murder on an unimaginable scale. The security of this nation and our friends requires decisive action. And with a broad coalition, we are taking that action around the globe. We are on the offensive against terror, and we will stay on the offensive against terror,” Bush said.
And he added:
“Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York, or St. Louis, or Los Angeles (…). There will be no retreat from Iraq. Our only goal, our only option, is total victory in the war on terror. And this nation will press on to victory.”
Bush promises the world new wars, new “preventive” wars in which the US and its allies will strike first against regimes they do not like and brand as terrorist regimes, rogue states or something similar. September 11, 2001, was just the opportune pretext for launching the “War on Terror”, a long series of wars all over the world, which are meant to ensure US global hegemony in the twenty-first century.
New states are on the list of targets of unprovoked looting wars, “preventive wars” against international law. Bush and Co. do not hide it: Syria, Iran, North Korea and Cuba are just some of them. In Palestine as well, the US and its closest ally (next to the UK), the occupying power Israel, are fighting so-called Palestinian “terrorism”, that is, the armed struggle against the Israeli occupation and terror and for establishing a free and independent Palestinian state. Not since the time of Hitler, the peoples have been exposed to such an undisguised campaign for world conquest and world hegemony.
Denmark has joined the Great American colonialist campaign. “Denmark is with the US all the way,” a Social Democratic prime minister first declared, and the Fogh Rasmussen government then repeated it. And Denmark is part of the occupation of Afghanistan, of the war and occupation of Iraq, of the illegal wars that are launched on the basis of lies about weapons of mass destruction, terror or a coming threat. The Danish state supplies the soldiers; A.P. Moeller supplies transport ships and oil experts. Danish war planes have been bombing civilians in Afghanistan, and Danish soldiers have shot civilians and one of their own in Iraq.
The “War on Terror” is a pretext for something else, a pretext for imperialist aggression, purely and simply. Its objective is not to make the world a safer place, but to ensure the interests and profits of US and Western imperialism, and not at least to ensure US control over the oil resources of the world. At the end of the day, it is the war of the rich world against the world’s poor. It is class war, being waged by the monopolies and the billionaires against the poor billions of the globe. And Denmark is part of it – and goes all the way.
Fogh Rasmussen’s war – internally and externally
It is impossible to understand what is going on in the world or in Denmark without understanding the US policy for world hegemony, a policy which official Denmark has joined despite massive popular protests and a clear popular majority against the war and occupation of Iraq.
The Fogh Rasmussen government is waging war of aggression externally and class war internally. Rearmament, expensive military adventures, more money for the police and more prisons are on the agenda of the Fogh Rasmussen government. The repressive apparatus of the state is being strengthened while social expenses are being cut. Externally as well as internally, the war is being waged as a campaign against the last remnants of the so-called “welfare”, and the target is immigrants and refugees, unemployed and people receiving social benefits, young people of all categories and many others, that is, the great majority of Danes, not at least, and first of all, the working class.
Denmark, as the rest of the capitalist world, is in crisis with still growing unemployment, housing shortage, and simple human distress and misery. As in the 1930s, the ruling class is seeking its way out by aggressions and by placing the burdens of the crisis on the shoulders of others. The profits must be ensured, and the big party of the shareholders continue forever.
The Budget 2004, attacking recipients of unemployment benefit, rehabilitees, students, study grants and the collective traffic, cutting rent subsidies and child benefits, and giving huge presents to the banks, the shareholders, the big farmers and environmental pigs, to the police and the military, makes the internal class war of Fogh Rasmussen crystal clear.
The EU is no alternative
In 2004, there is going to be a referendum on the new EU constitution in Denmark. Both the Fogh Rasmussen government and the Social Democrats are racking their brains in order to sell it to the obstinate and sceptical Danes. The constitution is the ticket of the EU and the European monopolies for becoming a superpower like the US, an imperialist world power. It is a guarantee for external war and neoliberal class war against the European peoples. It is also a guarantee for the abolition of the last remnants of Danish independence, for Denmark becoming a state in the “United States of Europe”, or rather, the “United Europe of the Monopolies”.
The course of the Fogh Rasmussen government and the Social Democrats is clear: The Danes must accept the constitution, introduce the euro and drop all EU opt-outs. Their problem is that the majority of Danes are against. But there was also a majority against the war on Iraq. In spite of that, Denmark participates in the war.
Popular unity against war, crisis and reaction
The only answer to the external and internal offensive of the Fogh Rasmussen government and the monopolies is to develop a broad, popular, fighting front against war, crisis and reaction.
Important steps have already been taken: The anti-war movement with its massive demonstrations before the war on Iraq was one of them. The solidarity movement with the Palestinian people is another. The opposition to the EU and its constitution is massive. The strike movement of the workers is growing. Many public employees are protesting. A new generation of young people are starting to join the social movement, defending themselves against the privatisation policy, the cuts on education, and housing shortage. The municipal anti-social budgets will be met with protests from pensioners, parents, children, youth and employees.
Things are connected: War policy means reductions on schools and day care institutions, and construction of prisons instead of homes. Therefore, the opposition against Fogh Rasmussen’s class war on one field must combine with the struggle on other fields in order to stop the capitalist offensive.
The Workers’ Communist Party of Denmark (APK) and its youth league, the Communist Youth League of Denmark (DKU), stand for active struggle, for developing actions and mass protests against the mad class warriors in the Danish government and parliament, in the US and the EU, against the monopolies and their henchmen.
The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Workers' Communist Party of Denmark (APK)