I had expected a rush of letters from the USA opposing the bombing that has been going on for two hours now. There are only a couple. It poses the question of what is the basis of campaigning for peace now.
The international campaign for peace used to opposed to imperialist threats against the Soviet Bloc.
Nowadays after the fall of the Berlin wall it is not a question of whether Pax Americana rules, but how it rules. All these interventions are imperialist. This present intervention at this moment in the evening before we know what is happening, sounds to me midway between intervention in Kosovo, which has reduced mass ethnic cleaning, and the attack on the Khartoum pharmaceutical factory.
The attack on Baghdad is part of a long term skirmishing for freedom of manouevre and leadership by the USA among the governments of the world. It can cut ahead and act unilaterally, but if too far outside consensus it may risk its client states being overthrown. France, the Soviet Union and China, may question its interpretation of its role in Iraq, which Hussein can play on to try to reduce the US domination of the monitoring mission. The price the US has to pay to use violence to contain Iraq is to appear to make some limited concessions towards the Palestinians versus Israel. Clinton's link to Gaza is connected.
His best excuse for the timing of this attack to argue that is was not just chosen to postpone the House of Repesentatives vote on impeachment, is that Ramadan starts this weekend.
What are the different bases on which the latest war is being opposed by progressives in the USA? Are there any progressive campaigns or media groups? What is the best statement that has been published, (not one that is 100% correct in an abstract sense but which is relevant politically in mobilising opposition to everything that is reactionary in this gunboat diplomacy).
Chris Burford
London.