Thank you for your wonderfully written piece about Washington's imminent war in Iraq. No other site that I have found contains the depth of analysis, the lack of propaganda, and the concern for humanity as the WSWS. The scale of the tragedy unfolding is beyond imagining. You've hit the nail on the head, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts to inform the disenfranchised masses of the nature of our government's policies.

Thanks.

BA
19 November 1998

Dear Editor,

Over the past year or so a large number of billboards in my town of Athens, Georgia have been covered with ads for the US military. These billboards are located downtown, on most of the major roads into town, and particularly in poor areas. These billboards offer an alternative to joblessness, poverty, and immobility to poor whites and blacks who are mostly shut out of economic prosperity ... join the military and serve the government. The ads are obviously designed to appeal to young people, just like cigarette ads, with slogans like: 'Go from High School to High Tech.' I get ill every time I drive by one, and think about the poor kids who have little choice but to volunteer for the slaughterhouse.

In the seventies the draft became so unpopular that the government had to do away with it. But why have a draft when you can conduct a massive billboard (and maybe TV, I don't watch it) ad campaign that spends probably millions of taxpayer dollars to lure the poor and desperate into a trap? It's probably working quite effectively, and most of these people will probably get only a short notice before they get sent off to Lord Knows Where. Some working class kids I met last year on the street had about a day's notice before being sent to Afghanistan.

I don't know if this campaign is mainly focused on the South or if it is a nationwide thing. Just thought I'd mention it to you as we gear up to make some use of these victims of poverty and mass advertising. Thanks again for the in-depth coverage on Iraq!

KA
19 November 1998

See:
Washington presses ahead with war plans against Iraq
[18 November 1998]
New Caspian oil interests fuel US war drive against Iraq
[17 November 1998]