Re: Support Our Troops

The end of Stan Goff's piece seems to contradict the beginning where he 
seems to say that what we do makes no difference to troop willingness to 
fight for the imperialists.

I will assume that his report of his feelings during the invasion of 
Grenada are accurate. But it does not take much reflection to recognize 
that the fate of the U.S. imperialist venture in Vietnam was at least 
influenced by the anti-war movement and anti-racist urban rebellions in 
the U.S. They contributed to the rebellion within the U.S. military that 
eventually forced U.S. withdrawal.

We should not avoid the politics implied in slogans such as "support our 
troops." *Our* troops, our people are the international working class, 
not the soldiers of a particular nation. We oppose imperialism and 
imperialist wars. We fight to put an end to the system that creates war 
after war in search of profits and control of strategic resources such 
as oil. (This is really a war against European capitalists!!) The 
movements we build influence both the will of U.S. soldiers to fight for 
imperialist goals and the will of anti-imperialists elsewhere to resist 
imperialism. We should acknowledge and take pride in that.

Paul