THIS WAR
                 WANTS YOU
                BACK AGAIN

This war with Iraq brings up a lot.
This war is about
Long-pent sickness now breaking out.
This war is about
Addiction to attitudes,
Behavior and sources of energy
That make for MASS DEATH.

This war is about
More people of color
Fighting and dying in far-off sand and mud
So that middle-class comforts and ruling-class power
May be maintained.

This war is about
Supporting our troops so that their blood
May keep cost of a gallon-of-gas
Around $1.00
Back here in the U.S.A.
This war about more exploitation.
This war that way like past wars.

This war is for Corporations' profits.
This war is 'a dream' for weapons-makers General
         Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas, et cetera.
This war also about Fluor, Bechtel, etc.
Anticipating $20 to $40 million
In Contracts to "rebuild" Kuwait.
This war firstly
About protecting and enriching Corporations
That supply oil from the Middle East--
About profits of Chevron, Shell, Amoco, etc.
Rising 77% in the last quarter of 1990--
And about George W. Bush Jr.'s Harkan Energy Corporation
Keeping the oil concession to Bahrain.

- - - - -

This war is also about
Making the U.S. military
Gatekeeper to the world's oil supply.

This war is also about
The West hoping to reapportion the Middle East
As after World War I,
When "Churchill's hiccup" created Kuwait.

This war is also about
"Liberating" Kuwait
To restore a feudal monarchy
That will put women back under yashmaks.

This war is also trying
To distract a populace "at home"
From injustices and inequities
That had demanded funds--
"The peace dividend"--for their correction.

This war is also about
Two gangsters who once were partners
Now fighting over spoils.
This war, a construction-worker in midnight-hour
Bar-talk says: "George Bush ought to be shot
For all the people he's killing."
This war, an oarsman on the Nile says: "Kill Hussein."

This war is also about
More lies.
This war, ABC is owned by Capital Cities,
NBC by General Electric, CBS by Westinghouse.
This pre-war, only 1%
Of these Big-Three Networks' coverage
On "the Gulf crisis" reported opposition to Bush's moves

Toward war, while Polls showed 60% to 70%
Of the U. S. people favored sanctions instead of war.
This war, a New York Timesman says:
"I've never seen anything like the degree
Of surveillance and control
The military has over the correspondents."
This war, the public knows less from watching TV.

This war, like wars before,
Children scream with their skin on fire--
Missiles explode inside bomb shelters--
Crushes die for lack of air--
Neither air, nor wheat, nor water left there--
As droughts grow deeper
On our overwhelmed and overwarming Earth.

This war is about
Several kinds of fix:
Our fix for oil
(The U.S comprising 4%
Of the world's population and 26%
Of its consumption of oil per year);
The fix we're in
Because of dependence on oil;
And the inside fix by profiteers
That made this war happen--
As in this war
The Bush Administration's "energy policy"
Is so like the Reagan/Carter/Ford/
Nixon/ Kennedy/ ... /Roosevelt/ ... /Roosevelt
Administrations' policies
(Making money from exhausting people and resources)
As to be one and the same
Long-going and ongoing damned thing.
  While
    This war's
      MASS DEATH
                Is as far-removed
                As bombers' radar
          Or video-game gunners'
      FLASHES!--HITS!--BALEEPS!
    Make mortality,
Many in this Nation
Led to again celebrate massacares
As if they were Super Bowl triumphs--

- - - - -

And yet this war
Is bound to be
The foreground for an overturning.
This war
Is bound to make reversal of its aims.
This war
Demonstrations in San Francisco, Washington, D. C.,
Rome, London, Bonn,
Of one hundred thousand or more
Denounce this war.
This war a
General Strike in Spain
Involves 2 million workers and 2.7 million students.
This war
Revolutionaries in Colombia and Peru
Cut off arms and pipelines
Of supranational Corporations.
This war happens
Amid arsenals in Projects.
This war
Is so great a wrong
That what goes around must come round
To blow up in the hands
Of those that started it.
This war
Spreads seeds of rage, sorrow and hope
All over.
This war
Is about our duty
As a people and a species.

Don Paul