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Letters from our readers

The following is a selection of recent letters sent to the World Socialist Web Site.

On “The Obama candidacy and the new consensus on Afghanistan”

The shift of focus to Afghanistan is simply a tactical move in final preparation for the coming attack on Iran. US air power is safely installed in Iraq, and now the eastern front must be secured to ensure a complete ‘pincer’ attack on Iran.

BR

Woodridge, Australia

22 July 2008

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I thought that with Obama being president the wars will end. I was mistaken. When will the Americans responsible understand that the best way to have peace in this world is for them to go back home? They have a lot of problems in their country, so let them stay there and tackle their own problems and leave the world to take care of its own. Enough killings.

AK

21 July 2008

On “Top US commander publicly criticizes Obama Iraq policy”

Excellent reporting, on an issue that the corporatist media ignores and even applauds—the rising military influence on imperialist war policy.

Admiral Mike ‘mad dog’ Mullen, who the media seem to have forgotten, was the then Navy CNO loudmouth who enflamed the British sailor crisis by saying “my sailors would have started firing,” now seems to be reprising the role of Gen. Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove. Ripper justified his preemptive launch of a B-52 nuclear attack on Russia by explaining that “today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”

Unfortunately, today we do not have a president, like the fictional Muffley in Strangelove or the real JFK in the Cuban missile crisis, who is leaning against a single militarist nut like Gen. Ripper or the real Gen. LeMay, but rather a president who is the leading cheerleader of a cabal of pro-war nuts.

AM

Sanford, Maine, USA

22 July 2008

On “New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Zimbabwe: A case of unclean hands”

A good article. Thomas Friedman, perched atop a heap of corpses, strikes a posture of moral rectitude.

Aside from this hypocritical windbag’s strident outpourings, it is significant that until relatively recently Mugabe enjoyed unstinting support from the West, even at the height of the Gukurahundi massacres. Western governments ultimately couldn’t give a fig about the fate of the Zimbabwean masses. It is the brutal cynicism of Realpolitik that drives them, particularly in Africa.

EG

South Africa

21 July 2008

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We must not expect anything from Friedman that his sponsors have not suggested. He will justify any atrocity if it benefits the US or Israel. However, I would like to thank you for showing how differently one hundred deaths in Zimbabwe was reported on in comparison with about a thousand in Kenya. Of course Kenya allows port calls by the US Navy and has an electronic spying facility in the country. And we see how non-deferential Mugabe is to England and other former colonial powers. As you well know the American press is an unofficial arm of the Pentagon!

WN

Mexico

21 July 2008

On “Bush: ‘Human life is precious’—EPA: ‘Less than you might think’”

This is utterly sickening, though hardly surprising. To the capitalists life is nothing but the productive potential, and is worthy of no more respect than a piece of machinery, in fact at times machinery is given greater care. Of course, I doubt the lives of these corrupt, idiot politicians is worth so little. Probably their “benefit” to society is much greater than that of the average man. It takes skill to rule, after all. Nor would I suppose that the values of the CEOs, the businessmen, the investors is worth such petty sums.

It is a repugnant thought. That the life of any person be reduced to simple monetary sums, and at that be sacrificed for profit! I shudder to imagine what sort of murderous audacity would follow this claim. That the elderly, so past their productive prime, are a waste of resources to keep alive past retirement? That those born with mental or physical defects are of insufficient value to society to maintain? Perhaps instead of downsizing company labor, they shall simply kill them? Preciousness of life, sanctity of life, things said by men who have never respected it, who uphold a system the goal of which has never been the protection of life. It is sickening, but so long as this system is in place, it will always be this way; a miserable world where the value of a human life does not stretch beyond one’s ability to work, where a human is seen only as a piece of machinery to be exploited. This is one of the most rousing calls for revolution!

GF

23 July 2008

On “Canada reaffirms support for Khard’s Guantánamo Bay detention and prosecution”

A snippet of that video was shown all around the world, without much comment, except a “security expert” pronouncing on ABC in Australia, that Khadr was a “hardened criminal with no remorse” for what he has done. Franz Kafka could not have done it better! It is in these rare instances where the truth manages to get out, despite the authorities doing everything humanly possible to suppress the evidence, such as at Abu Ghraib or Haditha, that the whole ugliness, amorality and cruelty of imperialism and occupation is shown up in stark light.

In this case a boy of 15 was abused and threatened by “civilized” and trained Canadian security officers, some of which could have had sons of that age, it didn’t matter. At Abu Ghraib, the seven charged with “degrading treatment” of Iraqi prisoners, were “ordinary” Americans, and most certainly coming out of the working class. What is abundantly apparent is the universality of exploitation, humiliation, hypocrisy, domination and gratuitous cruelty that is the hallmark of the capitalist system and its most extreme mutation, imperialism. Capitalism has the ability to destroy everything, debase everybody, and even cause its own demise, for which we fervently hope.

However, the threatened catastrophe can only be averted by a mass movement of the working class internationally, leading to a revolution and the seizing of power by the workers for the benefit of all the humanity. As Rosa Luxemburg presciently expressed: “we have a choice, either socialism or barbarism.” I know what the people around the world would rather have.

MS

Queanbeyan, Australia

21 July 2008

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