-----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
-Over the last few months I've found myself defending Clinton against the -vile creeps who want to impeach him. Having written almost nothing but -diatribes against him since 1992, this was a strange feeling. Now, after -this attack on Iraq, I think the hell with him. I hope he suffers. Impeach -the bastard, humiliate him. Make the U.S. look absurd in the eyes of the -world.
This is a really odd position. I have been continually frustrated, especially since the Gulf War, with progressive's obsession with military violence as their activating issue.
Well over 500,000 Iraqi civilians have died due to sanctions. As a policy, sanctions were and are a much nastier, much more inhumane attack on the Iraqi civilian population.
If Clinton's Iraq policy was going to make you want to impeach him, the sanctions policy should have already done it.
Why call for impeachment for Clinton attacking military targets when he has been perpetuating a policy of starvation of civilians for his whole Presidency?
On the more general level, why does the left object more to military-based violence and death than to economic-based sanctions?
--Nathan Newman