May 8, 2023, According to the Department of Defense, the so-called "Coalition" has conducted 13,331 airstrikes on Iraqi targets as of August 9th, 2017. Although the U.S. is still enforcing strict restrictions on commercial flights over Iraq, the DoD stopped publishing its airstrike tally in 2017. No doubt it would redact the entire regime change war and pop it behind a secret trapdoor like a vanishing elephant if there was a chance that the trick would impress anyone.

At the present time, CENTCOM issues a monthly report of its joint undertakings in Iraq, yet does not indicate the kind of arms utilized. The 2023 CENTCOM data gives 25 partnered operations in April, 28 in March, 33 in February, and so forth. As stated by CENTCOM, the sum of its associated activities in 2022 is 191. It is a given that civilian losses of all ages are classified as ISIS members after death.

Since the ouster of the Iraqi government by U.S. forces in 2003, U.S. military sorties have been capable of taking off from within the country.  As has been pointed out from the beginning of the U.S. intervention, the Department of Defense is aware that the people of Iraq are its adversaries and, as such, the U.S. military's tactics concentrate on maximizing disorganization of the resistance and inflicting terror. The aim of the war is to compel the population to submit to colonial rule.

A system of political privilege that is maintained by the Western Coalition powers has been established in Iraq, yet the Iraqi people often demonstrate their resistance to this control and the entire program of big capital for their country. The sharp polarization in the country is continuing to mature. The people regularly prepare massive political protests and other actions which direct their opposition against the U.S. government. According to the U.S. State Department's Iraq Travel Advisory, "Consular services to U.S. citizens in Iraq are limited to emergency services due to severe restrictions on the movements of U.S. government personnel. Demonstrations, protests, and strikes occur frequently throughout the country. These events can develop quickly without prior notice, often interrupting traffic, transportation, and other services, and sometimes turning violent."

The U.S. government's choice of term "Coalition" is used to describe U.S.-NATO operations in Iraq. According to NATO Mission Iraq, the Coalition aims to stabilize Iraq.

Of course, in the real world, the Coalition was never motivated by any such "humanitarian" motives, but rather by the program of U.S. and British imperialism to redraw the map of Iraq as part of their struggle to redivide the world. Both at home and abroad, the Coalition systematically tramples the human rights of the people underfoot. Nowhere has any people been forced by circumstances to pay a higher price for the crimes of the Coalition and the crisis of the world imperialist system than the people of Iraq.

Within the American political system, the source of the problem is that the two monopoly capitalist parties in Washington are determined to keep Iraq under the thumb of the Pentagon and to deny the sovereignty of the Iraqi people. However, a just outcome of the continuing Coalition destruction of Iraq can only come about through the withdrawal of all U.S. military forces from Iraq, the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and an end to all U.S. interference and intervention.

What is needed is for the movement of the American people against the aggressive wars of our "own" government to provide itself with the political consciousness and independent organization required to collectively assert ourselves as the makers of the history we want. We are told that democracy means the rule of the majority. The overwhelming majority of the people have an interest in and aspiration to achieve: the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops abroad, the withdrawal of the U.S. from all aggressive military pacts and alliances such as NATO, an end to the militarization of U.S. society and an end to U.S. interference and intervention against other countries in any form – economic, diplomatic, political, military, etc. 

The American people have always opposed aggressive, imperialist wars waged by their own government and created movements in opposition. The American people have also built up on-going movements of friendship and solidarity with peoples oppressed and attacked by U.S. imperialism. The struggle against war and imperialism is a decisive aspect of the class struggle in the United States. The U.S. working class cannot achieve emancipation without rejecting and defeating the chauvinism and militarism of the capitalist class. 

The U.S. government of two party monopoly has a history of disguising its imperialistic ambitions under the guise of democracy, human rights, and freedom. The capitalist class uses these slogans to promote American chauvinism and promote the capitalist monopolies' interests. The opposition to war and colonialism forces U.S. imperialism to use imperialist pacifism as a counter-revolutionary tactic, which talks about peace while waging war, promising negotiations and compromise while imposing its will. For instance, the U.S. government has armed and organized Israeli fascism against the Palestinian nation for 3/4 of a century, but still presents itself as an honest broker seeking peace. Imperialist pacifism tries to portray imperialist warmakers as advocates of peace while slandering the people who resist colonialism and fight for their rights as the source of violence and terrorism. The policy of imperialist pacifism attempts to cover up the depth of contradictions between imperialism and the people while separating war and colonialism from their root causes in the imperialist system.

Through opportunism, the capitalists import their chauvinist politics right into the anti-war movement. The opportunists never stop cursing the people as the source of war and racism. At the same time, they are not really opposing the war but only advising imperialism to better conceal its aggressive aims with more talk about "democracy" and "human rights."

Therefore, successfully fighting against U.S. imperialism necessarily includes a continuous fight against imperialist deception and pacifism because war and militarism are inseparable parts of the imperialist system that is based on exploitation and subjugation.

To be sure, the people's independent political initiatives and organizations keep getting liquidated by political opportunism; betrayals and unprincipled splits take place over and over. So instead of achieving their aims, the people repeatedly have to start again in order to get organized. While the people still face these obstacles, they are persevering in their efforts to unite themselves and take the initiative into their own hands. Their just struggle is bound to win! Even in spite of the temporarily successful role of political opportunism in tying large numbers of formerly active sections of the people to the parties of war and imperialism, the people as a whole have changed the political map and brought their opposition to the entire "war against international terrorism" to centerstage. The popular masses’ historical creativity is decisive.

Anti-imperialist politics is needed to bring the ideals brought up by the anti-war movement of the American people into correspondence with objective reality. Today more than ever, the American people must get organized against the Coalition role in Iraq. This struggle is part of the fight against U.S. chauvinism and imperialism, part of the struggle of the working class and people for a genuinely democratic foreign policy which demands an end to U.S. intervention and aggression around the world.

For their part, the people of Iraq have shown unwavering determination to overcome any obstacles in their path and are actively working towards achieving their goal of liberation from the yoke of U.S. imperialism. The harvest of this struggle will surely be victory!