Yippee! Goliath whips David!

Scan page 2

We have just been through one of the most bloodthirsty wars in U.S. history. The number of dead is in the hundreds of thousandsalmost all Iraqi dead.

The United States dropped the equivalent of one bomb per minute on Iraq civilians and the Iraq army. Even as the Iraq army was retreating and moving out of Kuwait, the U.S. forces continued their blood-letting.

This was neither a war nor a battle. This was what we hillbillies used to call "shooting fish in a barrel." It was like putting my seven-year-old grandson in the ring with Joe Lewis and cheering Lewis on to victory.

Iraq is a Third World country with a population of less than 19 million. Half of that population is under the age of 15. The United States chose to make an example of Iraq for the whole world, especially the Third World.

"Democratic" Kuwait?

Does the United States government care so much for democracy that it would spend $1 billion per day to save Kuwait? Kuwait is ruled completely by a monarchy, noted for the extreme differences between its poor and its wealthy. In fact, Kuwait hires its workers mainly from the Arab world's poor because most Kuwait "citizens" don't work.

The real reason for the enormous destruction unleashed by the United States is to warn all Third World countries and the working class of the Soviet Union, itself, not to make a move for independence or freedom from the world's most powerful imperialist power.

From the beginning of the war against Iraq, Bush promised the people in this country that it would not be another Vietnam. The ruling class knew that the anti-war feeling, which arose immediately after the first air raid on Iraq, was growing into a massive force in this country and around the world. Millions of people marched and demonstrated By against in city world.

The capitalist class knew that only a swift war would stop such a movement. That is another reason for the massive force used against the people of Iraq. It also allowed the generals to test their deadly weapons, which have cost the working people of the United States untold billions of dollars. The military-industrial complex is rubbing its hands in glee at the thought of billions more for even more deadly weapons.

A rotten system Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the mouthpieces for the capitalist class have been saying that socialism just doesn't work. What doesn't work is capitalism. Any economic system that depends on a bloody war against the poor and oppressed of the world to keep its system operating is a rotten, fouled-up system. It doesn't work for the millions of homeless and hungry (and the even larger number of working people on the edge of disaster).

Billions of dollars have been DARI zand 1+Gh used to foul up the environment, destroy our forest, pollute our air and water, and waste the world's resources for the profit of a few. Since World War II alone, millions of people have died in capitalist wars.

The war against Iraq was an imperialist war—a war of the large imperialist countries against the Middle Eastern peoples. Now the imperialists will, once again, fight among themselves to grab up the loot. They will continue to buy off governments such as the debauched monarchies of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, using the wealth they steal from them.

Then the sheikhs and princes, the idle rich of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, will go back to the gaming tables of Monaco and the night clubs of Southern France. That's how capitalism works. It works to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

We must demand that the United States stop using our sons and daughters as cannon fodder for the rich. We have a war here at home. A war for full medical treatment for all. A war to end the curse of NEA WELL, ON SECOND THOUGHT, MAYBE YOU DID SPELL IT CORRECTLY! AIDS once and for all. A war for free, quality childcare centers for all children who need them. A war to lower the class room size of our schools and provide each and every child a free, quality education from childcare through college.

We have a war to end hunger, to provide decent jobs for all, to provide decent housing for every person. A war to clean up our rivers, air, and earth. A war to provide safe, unpolluted living conditions for all. That's a war worth winning and one in which we can be proud to serve.