If the possibility that a country possesses weapons of mass destruction is a justification for attacking that country, then the United States should be the first to be attacked. The United States manufactures and maintains more weapons of mass destruction than any other nation.

While the United States has far outdone Iraq in the field of chemical weapons by covering 21,000 square kilometers of Indochina with poisonous gas between 1954 and 1975, far more dangerous is the nuclear threat.

The United States maintains more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined and remains the only nation ever to have used a nuclear weapon. The Nuclear Posture Review, leaked to the press in March, outlined the United States’ intention to use nuclear weapons on a “first use” basis in certain scenarios, naming seven nations, including Libya and Syria, which do not possess nuclear weapons, as possible targets.

Perhaps Colin Powell best explained the U.S. government’s position on the human cost of war when asked if he knew how many Iraqis died in the 1991 war. “That is really not a matter I am terribly interested in,” he answered.

The actual reason the American ruling class intends to invade Iraq is to establish a U.S. client state, i.e. a state that will allow private corporations to dominate its resources (oil in particular), spend a large percentage of its revenue on U.S.-produced weapons and allow U.S. military bases to be established in their country for the purpose of securing imperialism.

This is the nature of a system that places the rule of profit above democracy and human rights. Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a will.” The protests are an expression of our will, and therefore we will continue protesting.