Socialist Viewpoint

In all the pros and cons expressed in the mass media over whether or not to commence an all out war against Iraq, the loss of innocent lives and the destruction of the earth upon which that war will be fought is not taken into consideration as part of the balance sheet. It is simply dismissed as the inevitable consequences of war—“collateral damage.” The United States stands above everyone else in the world and declares that this war is necessary. Our government, both Democrats and Republicans, stand united. The differences between them is quantitative, at best, not qualitative. They hold the power to declare such a war. It is they who have their finger on the trigger.

The Democrats along with Republicans have voted for an enormous military budget. They both stood up and down like jackrabbits giving standing ovations at the State of the Union message given by George W. They both acknowledge that every time George W. speaks they become more convinced of the necessity for a pre-emptive strike against the people of Iraq. They spread lies and rumors through the mass media that the government of Iraq is strategically placing weapons of mass destruction in mosques, schools and hospitals. Meanwhile they vote for huge budget measures to prepare for a mercilessly bloody attack on the people of Iraq. An attack that they hope will serve as an example to the rest of the Arab world and to the entire world’s poor and oppressed.

The Democratic “critics” say simply that George W. should do a better job convincing people of the necessity for war. They say he is not convincing enough! They debate and argue over which social services they are going to cut to fund the war. And while our civil liberties are being torn asunder, they argue over whether the Patriot Act personnel, snitches, etc., should be under a union contract.

We can be sure that when they attack the people of Iraq, it will be under the guise of defending “democracy.” But what they will really be defending is free trade. To the cries of food, housing, medical care, jobs, and education, they offer the world war, prisons, debt and world domination. They tread on the dangerous ground of a war of “good vs. evil”—they being the good and the evil a faceless enemy hidden all over the world that are in opposition to their domination.

It is obvious that their dispute with this faceless enemy of evil is over money and oil and who will have ultimate control over it. Our government poses no threat of war over the murdering dictatorships responsible for the thousands of “disappeared” throughout South America or over the plunder by all the major powers in Africa, or by the murderous expulsion of an entire people in Palestine. They play down statistics when they are not in their favor. For instance, according to CNN Headline News broadcast September 30th, 2002, “Since September, 2000, two hundred and thirty five Palestinian and sixty one Israeli children under seventeen years old have been killed.” Yet our government places the blame on the Palestinians and portrays them as evil—less than human. Both the Democrats and Republicans reinforce this attack against the Palestinian people by voting to send billions of dollars to fund Israel’s military. We don’t go to war over all the other dictatorships we have built, funded, and armed throughout the world. We don’t go to war over the child slavery of NIKE corporation. We go to war over money and who has the power and control over the resources needed to make more of that money. We go to war over land and oil—over the control of wealth.

The battle lines are also forming over the privatization of water and the very air we breathe. Air pollution credits are traded like a commodity. Human beings forced to breathe this air are in a battle for their lives the same as if they were at war. The world bank is busy buying up all the clean water around the globe and selling it back to the human inhabitants at two plus times what they had been paying for it—effectively excluding vast numbers of humans from access to any clean water. And all the while they continue to pollute that very water with abandon and with the full support of the rulers of those countries that contain that water including our own.

We live in a crucial time. We are on the “eve of destruction,” as the old song goes.

Wait! Why do I say “we” throughout this? Certainly it is “we” who need clean water, air, food and shelter. That “we” is the universal “we” and it includes all the living things on this planet as well as we humans.

But among us is another group. It is a much smaller group. Actually it represents only about one percent of the universal “we” that is human! This group, I’ll call “they.” They own and control, through the threat of death and annihilation of the planet, ninety percent of the wealth of the world and are seeking to buy and control the last ten percent. They have their “finger on the trigger—gonna pull” it if we don’t give them what they want.

Who is it that has their finger on the trigger? Is it farmers, plumbers, carpenters, painters, bakers, waitresses, school teachers, the unemployed, drug addicts, ditch diggers, fishermen, jail inmates, secretaries, supermarket clerks, sheep herders, factory workers, dentists, doctors, bike messengers, writers and artists—the masses?

Who has the barrel against whose head? The most powerful of them all—backed militarily, financially, and virtually universally by the Democratic and Republican government of the United States. Their spokesperson, George W. brazenly tells the world that the “they” he represents are willing to pull that trigger if need be.

It is the capitalist class throughout the world led by the government of the United States that have their fingers on the trigger. It is they who threaten the world with mass destruction if we, the universal “we,” do not obey their command. Their threat is not empty. Their history is long and bloody. They are responsible for more deaths than any other empire in the world. From its very inception they have used biological weapons (small pox tainted blankets) against the indigenous people of the Americas, wiping out entire villages at a time. They massacred the buffalo, starving thousands more. They prided themselves in their victorious battle stories while in reality practically wiping out an entire population of diverse, indigenous cultures, and people. They dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the Japanese tried to surrender. The sum damage from the conventional weapons that were dropped on Tokyo was even greater than the two atomic bombs combined. They napalmed, defoliated, bombed and burned the people of Vietnam. They were the first to invent a way to make anthrax into a weapon and devise a way to deliver it. They have and continue to use smart bombs coated with depleted uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan that makes even the U.S. soldiers handling them sick. Their government refuses to be answerable even to its own people about its experiments and research into biological, chemical and nuclear warfare. They threaten to pull that trigger knowing that it can lead to the end of the universal “we”—including them! They do not make their threats from the standpoint of a poor and battered people with nothing else to live for except the desire to make those who are the cause of their misery feel what they feel—experience the losses and degradation they have experienced for decades—and in some cases, for centuries. On the contrary, they are the wealthiest and most powerful military force in the world. It is they that have their finger on the triggers of the most numerous and most powerful weapons of mass destruction ever before seen on the planet.

They, in fact, are the ultimate and true suicide bombers! Only the unified working class acting democratically, on behalf of and in the interests of the entire planet, can have the power to disarm these tyrants and bring peace to the world. A world wide socialist revolution is the only realistic vehicle to bring about that unity and democracy.

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	October 2002 • Vol 2, No. 9 • The Ultimate and True Suicide Bombers The real reason behind the war against Iraq? By Bonnie Weinstein In all the pros and cons expressed in the mass media over whether or not to commence an all out war against Iraq, the loss of innocent lives and the destruction of the earth upon which that war will be fought is not taken into consideration as part of the balance sheet. It is simply dismissed as the inevitable consequences of war—“collateral damage.” The United States stands above everyone else in the world and declares that this war is necessary. Our government, both Democrats and Republicans, stand united. The differences between them is quantitative, at best, not qualitative. They hold the power to declare such a war. It is they who have their finger on the trigger. The Democrats along with Republicans have voted for an enormous military budget. They both stood up and down like jackrabbits giving standing ovations at the State of the Union message given by George W. They both acknowledge that every time George W. speaks they become more convinced of the necessity for a pre-emptive strike against the people of Iraq. They spread lies and rumors through the mass media that the government of Iraq is strategically placing weapons of mass destruction in mosques, schools and hospitals. Meanwhile they vote for huge budget measures to prepare for a mercilessly bloody attack on the people of Iraq. An attack that they hope will serve as an example to the rest of the Arab world and to the entire world’s poor and oppressed. The Democratic “critics” say simply that George W. should do a better job convincing people of the necessity for war. They say he is not convincing enough! They debate and argue over which social services they are going to cut to fund the war. And while our civil liberties are being torn asunder, they argue over whether the Patriot Act personnel, snitches, etc., should be under a union contract. We can be sure that when they attack the people of Iraq, it will be under the guise of defending “democracy.” But what they will really be defending is free trade. To the cries of food, housing, medical care, jobs, and education, they offer the world war, prisons, debt and world domination. They tread on the dangerous ground of a war of “good vs. evil”—they being the good and the evil a faceless enemy hidden all over the world that are in opposition to their domination. It is obvious that their dispute with this faceless enemy of evil is over money and oil and who will have ultimate control over it. Our government poses no threat of war over the murdering dictatorships responsible for the thousands of “disappeared” throughout South America or over the plunder by all the major powers in Africa, or by the murderous expulsion of an entire people in Palestine. They play down statistics when they are not in their favor. For instance, according to CNN Headline News broadcast September 30th, 2002, “Since September, 2000, two hundred and thirty five Palestinian and sixty one Israeli children under seventeen years old have been killed.” Yet our government places the blame on the Palestinians and portrays them as evil—less than human. Both the Democrats and Republicans reinforce this attack against the Palestinian people by voting to send billions of dollars to fund Israel’s military. We don’t go to war over all the other dictatorships we have built, funded, and armed throughout the world. We don’t go to war over the child slavery of NIKE corporation. We go to war over money and who has the power and control over the resources needed to make more of that money. We go to war over land and oil—over the control of wealth. The battle lines are also forming over the privatization of water and the very air we breathe. Air pollution credits are traded like a commodity. Human beings forced to breathe this air are in a battle for their lives the same as if they were at war. The world bank is busy buying up all the clean water around the globe and selling it back to the human inhabitants at two plus times what they had been paying for it—effectively excluding vast numbers of humans from access to any clean water. And all the while they continue to pollute that very water with abandon and with the full support of the rulers of those countries that contain that water including our own. We live in a crucial time. We are on the “eve of destruction,” as the old song goes. Wait! Why do I say “we” throughout this? Certainly it is “we” who need clean water, air, food and shelter. That “we” is the universal “we” and it includes all the living things on this planet as well as we humans. But among us is another group. It is a much smaller group. Actually it represents only about one percent of the universal “we” that is human! This group, I’ll call “they.” They own and control, through the threat of death and annihilation of the planet, ninety percent of the wealth of the world and are seeking to buy and control the last ten percent. They have their “finger on the trigger—gonna pull” it if we don’t give them what they want. Who is it that has their finger on the trigger? Is it farmers, plumbers, carpenters, painters, bakers, waitresses, school teachers, the unemployed, drug addicts, ditch diggers, fishermen, jail inmates, secretaries, supermarket clerks, sheep herders, factory workers, dentists, doctors, bike messengers, writers and artists—the masses? Who has the barrel against whose head? The most powerful of them all—backed militarily, financially, and virtually universally by the Democratic and Republican government of the United States. Their spokesperson, George W. brazenly tells the world that the “they” he represents are willing to pull that trigger if need be. It is the capitalist class throughout the world led by the government of the United States that have their fingers on the trigger. It is they who threaten the world with mass destruction if we, the universal “we,” do not obey their command. Their threat is not empty. Their history is long and bloody. They are responsible for more deaths than any other empire in the world. From its very inception they have used biological weapons (small pox tainted blankets) against the indigenous people of the Americas, wiping out entire villages at a time. They massacred the buffalo, starving thousands more. They prided themselves in their victorious battle stories while in reality practically wiping out an entire population of diverse, indigenous cultures, and people. They dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the Japanese tried to surrender. The sum damage from the conventional weapons that were dropped on Tokyo was even greater than the two atomic bombs combined. They napalmed, defoliated, bombed and burned the people of Vietnam. They were the first to invent a way to make anthrax into a weapon and devise a way to deliver it. They have and continue to use smart bombs coated with depleted uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan that makes even the U.S. soldiers handling them sick. Their government refuses to be answerable even to its own people about its experiments and research into biological, chemical and nuclear warfare. They threaten to pull that trigger knowing that it can lead to the end of the universal “we”—including them! They do not make their threats from the standpoint of a poor and battered people with nothing else to live for except the desire to make those who are the cause of their misery feel what they feel—experience the losses and degradation they have experienced for decades—and in some cases, for centuries. On the contrary, they are the wealthiest and most powerful military force in the world. It is they that have their finger on the triggers of the most numerous and most powerful weapons of mass destruction ever before seen on the planet. They, in fact, are the ultimate and true suicide bombers! Only the unified working class acting democratically, on behalf of and in the interests of the entire planet, can have the power to disarm these tyrants and bring peace to the world. A world wide socialist revolution is the only realistic vehicle to bring about that unity and democracy.

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