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Title: For Starters (WS49)
Author: Workers Solidarity Movement
Date: 1996
Language: en
Topics: Ireland, US foreign interventions, Workers Solidarity
Source: Retrieved on 11th December 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws/start49.html
Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 49 — Autumn 1996.

Workers Solidarity Movement

For Starters (WS49)

July 2^(nd) saw the JFK aircraft carrier sail into Dublin Bay. The scale

of the vessel was staggering, it was as big as New York’s Empire State

Building and carried 75 aircraft on its 4.5 acre flightdeck. We were

supposed to see this as something wonderful, a floating city harnessing

all the latest technology. We were not supposed to see it for what it

is: a massive killing machine. The Workers Solidarity Movement joined

several hundred protesters in Dún Laoghaire who were happy to welcome

American tourists but were not going to welcome a visit by this death

ship.

As the WSM bulletin Anarchist News pointed out “The US embassy has

admitted that planes launched from the JFK dropped 3.5 million pounds of

explosive during the Gulf War. [This was the war where the US lined up

with Kuwaiti and Saudi tyrants against an Iraqi tyrant. Hurrah for

liberty!].

“Among the recipients of this gift from Uncle Sam were over 300 men,

women and children burnt to death in a civilian bomb shelter in Baghdad.

The US authorities didn’t care, in their own words this was just

“collateral damage”. Planes from the JFK also took part in the “turkey

shoot” on the Basra Road where tens of thousands of retreating Iraqi

conscript soldiers were massacred after they had been defeated.”

The US now supplies just over 48% of the world’s arms. There is a

fortune to be made from selling weapons of war. In 1994 alone the

developing world spent close to £90 billion on weapons. Yet the United

Nations estimates that just £11 billion of this money would pay for all

the primary health needs of people in the developing countries.

Anarchist News went on to say “Think of all the suffering that could be

ended, the diseases eradicated, the homeless housed and the hungry fed

if all this wealth and expertise was put to worthwhile use. This will

not happen by appealing to politicians & bosses — decades of petitions

and pleas have achieved nothing. It will only happen when we end the

rule of the millionaires and build a society based on satisfying

people’s needs.”