Re: Anti-Militarism Posters?
Kevin Dempsey Peterson (peterson@ocf.Berkeley.EDU)
Sun, 15 Feb 1998 20:21:25 -0800
On 14 Feb 1998, George J. Lee wrote:
>Some people think that by attacking Iraq, we're punishing Saddam. As
>we learned from the Gulf war, Saddam retained his power despite the
>utter defeat of his army; Saddam does not care about his country's
>citizens. By waging war on Iraq, we only hurt the civilians while
>Saddam Hussein lives in luxury inside his palace.
I saw a headline yesterday or today that made me think that the
socialist idea of war being a tool to oppress the workers does have a
shread of truth in it. It seems that the FBI is investigating the CIA
for a plot to "murder" Saddam Hussein. What's the big deal?
Hussein is the problem, not the soldiers in his armies. Kill Saddam and
there is no need for war. But, when we start admitting that the best
solution to something that would escalate into a war is to kill the
leaders, then the leaders here start sweating. War as it's currently
fought give the leaders exemption from any inconvenience. "No, no, we
can't assasinate Saddam", but we can kill thousands of soldiers who
aren't actually doing anything but defending their country from
invasion.
The Socialists are right -- there is a division between the elite and
the commoners, but the enemies are the capitalists, they are the
political leaders, and the allies are not the mythical blue collar
workers who sit around reading das Kapital in the evenings, but every
individual who is satisfied to be left alone and leave everyone else
alone.
--Kevin