------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 24, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
EDITORIAL: HIGH TOLL AWAITS OCCUPATION ARMY Marine Lance Cpl. Antonio J. Sledd, 20 years old, was killed in a gunfight Oct. 8 on Failaka Island, Kuwait. His death may be a glimpse of the future: A long line of youths to die patrolling the world for U.S., Inc. That's if the Bush- Cheney-Rumsfeld gang has its way. This is the future the Bush administration outlined in its "National Security Strategy" document published on the New York Times Web site Sept. 20. It vows U.S. domination of the world. That requires military conquest to terrify its imperialist rivals and an occupation army to restore its brand of "order" and allow the transnational monopolies to ravage the planet for profits. The Pentagon will try to use air power to keep U.S. troop casualties low during the conquest. Whether this tactic succeeds is still in doubt. But the assault on Failaka Island shows how an inevitable resistance will surely grind up the youths the generals put in harm's way. Kuwait is supposed to be the country in the Middle East that is friendliest to Washington and the U.S. military. Its rulers owe their continued exploitation of a share of the emirate's oil wealth to the 1991 U.S. military intervention. Failaka Island is off of mainland Kuwait, uninhabited, and therefore easy to defend. Almost no one has the right to go there. Yet two Kuwaiti citizens managed to get onto the island with weapons and an automobile. Knowing they faced certain death, they engaged U.S. Marines in firefights, killing one. The two were finally killed. Bush called them terrorists. But a large section of Kuwaitis considered them martyrs and heroes. The Pentagon brass have sent their troops to occupy Arab and Muslim lands. Now the Bush administration wants to send youths from the United States to invade Iraq in order to install a military government beholden to U.S. interests in the region. But the burgeoning anti-war movement in the United States is taking to the streets and campuses across the country in order to save the lives of young GIs as well as the women, men and youth of Iraq. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
