Blair's strong supporting role

Micah Timothy Holmquist micahth at umich.edu
Fri Dec 18 18:01:49 PST 1998



> Both the United States and its (mainly Trilateralist) partners have had a
> problem ever since Vietnam's victory (and since the British military stalemate
> in the north of Ireland): their ability to wage an actual war as an instrument
> of policy has been crippled, as distinct from so-called low-intensity wars
> formerly called counterinsurgency, or invasions of such small countries as
> Grenada and Haiti. (Note: Israel obviously does not share this current
> disability of imperialism.)

It is worth noting that in the present "new world order" a decision has been made to to deal with and attempt to resolve the situations with the Palestinians and Northern Ireland. (FWIW I briefly debated in my head whether or not to refer to Palestine, like Northern Ireland, as such but resisted the urge if no other reason than the fact that Northern Ireland has since its division from Ireland always constituted a governable body whereas nothing resembling that has existed in the name of Palestine until very recently.) Perhaps this is just part of an attempt to not let these old conflicts fester on now that the cold war is over. This is not to say that the problems really have been solved but only that an attempt has been made to superficially resolve them.


> In these respects we are still in the early stages of imperialist
> reconstruction.

What will it mean to be further along the process though? The only thing that I can think of is when the U.S. military can be constantly sent in to subdue and pacify hostile populations. I would not put either Somalia or Haiti in that category as in both cases a significant portion of the population was, at first at least, very receptive to Uncle Sam. (How does Panama fit into this? I do not know much about the "excursion" but do seem to remember hearing about large numbers of people being killed. Who was being killed and for what purpose?)

Furthermore I have trouble imagining the U.S. getting involved in such a war unless it was forced. If the ruling class is not willing to do it in regards to Iraq -which is lead by a leader that has been portrayed as the living manifestation of the devil- then who will they be willing to do it to unless really threatened?

Micah



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