No part of a warmongers club

27 January 2015

Peace Action Wellington condemns the prime minister’s commitment of military support for the US war in Iraq. Peace Action also condemns the casual and cavalier way in which the prime minister discusses joining the US-UK led war as being the ‘price of the club’.

But it comes as little surprise that millionaire Prime Minister John Key reached for the image of a club when announcing war moves.

Exclusive clubs are where top political deals regularly get done.

New Zealand should have no part of a club that invades, bombs and spies on people anywhere.

Western military activity in the Middle East is not about helping distressed citizens or combating Islamic extremism. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not about ‘liberation' as then US President George W. Bush proclaimed, with more than 130,000 people dead as a direct result of the invasion and occupation that lasted until 2011.

In fact in the complex situation that has evolved in the Middle East, the United States has been funding, training and arming many of the same people it is now fighting.

Western troops and drones are an imperialist operation to secure American domination over the oil-rich region.

New Zealand supports Western alliances to advance its own big business interests. These are the same big business interests that lay off workers, cut wages and despoil the environment.

New Zealand working people need to create their own "club" - an international movement actively opposing war and the capitalist system which breeds modern war.

ENDS

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