The world’s number 1 war criminal, George W Bush is coming to Ireland this June. Join the Stop Bush Campaign and get active in opposing this visit.

- Are you opposed to the continued bloody occupation of Iraq?

- Do you think that Bush poses the biggest threat to our future?

- Are you opposed to Bush’s attacks on the environment, women’s rights and civil liberties?

Then you should join the Stop Bush Campaign. Socialist Youth, the youth section of the Socialist Party, has set up the Stop Bush Campaign for all young people and school students who are opposed to Bush and all he represents. Young people across the world and in Ireland played a crucial role in the Anti-War Movement last year. We believe young people should show the same determination they showed last year in opposing the visit of Bush to Ireland.

Since coming to power Bush has unleashed wave after wave of attacks on ordinary people in the US and across the world. He ripped up the Kyoto Protocol which required Big business to reduce their Green House Gas emissions by a tiny amount. He has carried on from where Bill Clinton left off in destroying health care facilities which has left 30 million ordinary Americans without health care coverage. The Patriot Act, introduced in the wake of September 11 has been used to criminalise those standing up for their democratic rights and has resulted in the detention of thousands of ordinary people without trial.

His domestic policies have only been matched in their ferocity by his barbaric foreign policy. Whilst slaughtering tens of thousands of ordinary Iraqi people and up to 6,000 Afghani’s, he has turned a blind eye to the bloody repression of the Palestinian people by Israel. One of the original justifications for the invasion of Iraq was that Iraq had contravened a United Nation Security Council resolution on disarming its famous Weapons of Mass Destruction. However Israel has broken up to twenty such resolutions and not a peep of opposition or protest is to be heard from the mouths of Bush, Rumsfeld and Co.

The truth is that Bush has implemented this agenda not because he is a mad man, but because is a loyal representative of the interests of US big business. All of his actions since coming to power have favoured big business at the expense of ordinary people as the 3 million American’s who have lost their jobs in the past four years know only too well. It is the giant oil and construction firms that are set to gain from the annihilation of Iraq.

Last year Bertie Ahern and the Fianna Fail/PD government turned Ireland into a giant aircraft carrier as Shannon became a US military base. Now Fianna Fail propose to turn Ireland into a giant election podium to assist Bush in his campaign to be re-elected Emperor of the “free world.” Bush wants to send home scenic pictures of himself standing by the Cliffs of Moher, which, he hopes, will push the horrific scenes of the killing fields of Iraq off the TV stations of America.

Socialist Youth will not stand by while Fianna Fail and the PD’s try to help Bush steel another election like they themselves did in 2002. Last year we organised thousands of school students in school walkouts and strikes in opposition to the drive to war. In the North, up to 15,000 marched out their classes in opposition to Tony Blair’s poodle-like following of Bush’s war plans. In the south thousands did likewise. We believe young people should organise similar protests when Bush comes to visit and for that purpose we have set up the Stop Bush Campaign. Linked to the campaign to stop Bush is the struggle to end the system which breeds war, racism, environmental destruction and exploitation - Capitalism.

Instead, we believe that the resources of the world should be owned and controlled democratically by the people of the world and not a tiny few. We believe that people and the environment should come before the profits of the giant multinationals. In this way the massive waste of the arms industry which sucks over $1trillion each year, could be ended and the money used to invest in the provision of education, health and a decent standard of living for the people of the world. This is not an idealistic dream. We must remember that on one day last year nearly 35 million people marched against the drive to war. But it is not enough to oppose war. It is necessary to oppose the system that breeds war. That is the task of Socialist Youth. Join us in building a socialist alternative to war, poverty and exploitation.

What you can do

* Set up a Stop Bush group in your school

* Collect a petition from your classmates demanding the invitation be withdrawn.

* Contact the Stop Bush campaign on 087 6684616 or email us at socialistyouth@hotmail.com (or use the join form below) for leaflets, posters, ideas etc.

* Organise a debate and invite a Stop Bush speaker to address your class/school

* Demand that your school organizes a referendum to see if young people support this visit.

* Collect "pledge cards" from your classmates promising to protest if the visit goes ahead.