Socialist Action /April 2000
FIGHTBACK
by Sylvia Weinstein
The Happy Imperialist
The happy imperialist is one who can ride roughshod over the world without
any worry about getting their just rewards. No one has the strength to "get
even."
NOT YET!
In the March 30 San Francisco Chronicle there is an article entitled,
"Drug Task Force Conducts Sweep South of Border." The article
starts, "Arresting a record 2331 suspected narcotics traffickers, law
enforcement agencies from the United States and other Western Hemisphere
nations have completed a huge bust they hope will at least temporarily restrict
the flow of illegal narcotics to the U.S. from the Caribbean and Central
and South America, officials announced yesterday."
The year-long investigation and 17-day sweep, dubbed Operation Conquistador,
corralled no high-level traffickers. But it represented an unusual strategy
for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, one that DEA official Michael
S. Vigil likened to a wide and destructive storm.
Led by the DEA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the U.S.
Coast Guard, the countries' law enforcement agencies blew across the Caribbean,
Central America, and South America beginning March 10. They eradicated coca
fields, destroyed 94 cocaine laboratories, and searched 7300 vessels, vehicles,
aircraft, and homes.
They hauled in 5000 kilograms of cocaine, 56 kilograms of heroin, 14
kilograms of morphine base, 362 metric tons of marijuana, 73 kilograms
of hashish oil, and an array of drug-making chemicals.
About half of those arrested were from the Dominican Republic, which
has developed into a major shipment point for drugs coming from Columbia
to the United States, according to Vigil. "End of Article."
Now, think WACO but think a big WACO! I bet you thought that most policemen
spend their days on the streets of U.S. cities shooting unarmed Black men.
Or attacking mourners marching in the streets to protest the shooting death
of an unarmed Black man. No, they've spread their violence to foreign countries,
where they can pull all the WACOs they want to without the intervention
of masses of people and without any formal investigation of the destruction
they have caused. It's all the U.S. government's secret war against drugs.
What we now have is imperialism in all its glory. The U.S. now takes
as its right invading any country at will. Especially the nations of Latin
America.
And when didn't the U.S. come up with a good sob story to excuse their
imperialist aims? Drugs, Weapons of Mass Destruction. etc., etc. Right now
the U.S. is involved in destruction in the Balkans under the guise of self-determination
for those people. But they refuse to let the nations of Latin America have
self-determination. Instead they send in their weapons of mass destruction
to invade and destroy those countries.
But even the most powerful imperialism will meet its end when the masses
of people refuse to bow down. And that has been happening. In the last few
weeks, we have seen massive marches against police brutality and murder
on the streets of U.S. cities.
Seattle was just a small show of outrage by people who are fed up with
monopoly capitalism, which treats the whole world as its charge card. The
capitalist class have been using their power to rape the world's forests,
rivers, minerals, and peoples.
Just remember, "as you sow so shall you reap." The happy imperialist
is going to be one unhappy sucker someday.
Socialist Action /April 2000 |