James Connolly on capitalist war.

I was feeling a bit homesick and melancoly today so I had a read at some of James Connolly's stuff.

What he wrote on the first world war seems very appropriate to the present slaughter being carried out by US capitalism in Iraq and Afghanistan. He wrote: "this war appears to me as the most frightful crime of the centuries. In it the working class are to be sacrificed that a small clique of rulers and armament makers may sate their lust for power and their greed for wealth. Nations are to be obliterated, progress stopped, and international hatreds erected into deities to be worshiped." Yes, with a small modification here and there this applies today.

He then wrote on the attitude that socialists should have to workers in other countries. Not for him the United we stand and the US flag, not for him God Bless America, not for him the so called national unity which sees the poorest of US working class youth go to war while the better off and rich grow fat and even richer at home. Not much unity there. Connolly wrote:"To me the socialist of another country is a fellow patriot, as the capitalist of my own country is a natural enemy." We can with good conscience change this to the "worker of another country is a friend while the capitalist of my own country is a natural enemy." After all it is not Iraqi's, Afghani's, Muslims, who are throwing tens of millions of Americans out of their jobs and homes and sending hundreds of thousands to fight for their oil and profits and power in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is the American capitalists.