2 American soldiers and a revolutionary are sitting in a bar...

//by Huey //original article in German in REVOLUTION #5

[Based on a true story.] One Friday evening in a club on the Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in East Berlin, a young revolutionary goes to get a fresh beer. At the bar he sees two young men with American accents whistling at girls. Always looking for a chance to try out his English, the revolutionary introduces himself. And soon it is discovered that these are two American soldiers who just came back from Iraq...

Revolutionary: It's weird to meet you guys face to face. On the anti-war demonstrations I always said on the megaphone: "Every American helicopter that is shot down is a victory not just for the Iraqi people, but for all oppressed people and the international working class!"

US Soldiers: Yeah, that is weird - we're both helicopter pilots.

[Long, uncomfortable pause]

REVO: So how does it feel to be Back from Iraq?

USA: It's pretty tough there. There's still a lot to do before they have Democracy. Right now there are lots of fanatics and fundamentalists on the streets who hate Freedom.

REVO: But the war wasn't for Democracy or Freedom. The plans for attacking Iraq were worked out back in the 90s by Neocons like Vice-President Dick Cheney. And he just happens to be on the board of an oil company that used the war to get easy access to Iraqi oil and is now earning billions.

USA: Yeah, you're right, it was a war for oil.

REVO: So why risk your life and kill people for the profits of others?

USA: There's a lot of important stuff to do in Iraq. We brought sacks of rice to poor people - they would have starved to death otherwise.

REVO: And why is that? In the 70s Iraq was the most developed country in the middle east. There was quality health care, free schools and universities, clean water, and a higher literacy rate than the USA. It was the US that encouraged the 8-year war between Iraq and Iran and provided both sides with weapons - including weapons of mass destruction. It was the US that gave Saddam the green light for the invasion of Kuwait, so they could then "take revenge" and bomb the whole country back to the stone age. It was the US that maintained the trade embargo against Iraq throughout the 90s, which led to the death of 1.5 million people. So who's responsible for people starving in Iraq?

USA: You don't understand, these people were living in houses made out of mud.

REVO: And who destroyed their former homes? Wasn't that you?

USA: But these mud houses were next to giant palaces with bathroom fixtures made out of gold.

REVO: Haven't you ever been to Washington? There you've got a President who was never elected living in a giant palace, and less than one kilometer away ethnic minorities are trapped in ghettos, denied their right to a humane shelter or medical treatment, harassed, tortured, and killed by police!

USA: Hey, if somebody tries to murder my wife and daughter, I'll fucking kill them.

REVO: But who the hell is trying to murder your family? It's been established that all the "evidence" about weapons of mass destruction were pure lies.

USA: But they can get in an airplane and fly it into a building.

REVO: The attacks from September 11th were carried out by Saudi Arabians, not Iraqis. And Saudi Arabia is supported by the Bush Regime, and vice versa...

USA: Those are all terrorists and we'll kill them!

REVO: But Iraqis don't have that right, do they? Thousands of their wives and daughters have been killed - so theoretically they're allowed to kill all American soldiers.

USA: Listen, it's easy for you here in the big city to run around with stupid ideas [indicates hammer and sickle t-shirt of his new friend] but we were there, man, we saw it...

At some point the revolutionary starts to realize that the younger of the two soldiers - who was trained to consider anyone who for whatever reason doesn't accept the liberating, democratizing hand of the US armed forces, a terrorist, and who spent months killing precisely these people - has at some point caught the scent of another "Enemy of Freedom". Knowing full well that these mercenaries of Imperialism are probably not going to be convinced of revolutionary communist ideas, the revolutionary makes a tactical retreat.

more stuff in English from REVOLUTION germany