Vietnam's (meager) resources

[Charles Brown]

Communism is a political and economic enemy of capitalism. So really fighting communism, does not contradict trying to get some minerals and other economic goals , like setting up neo-colonialist, i.e. economically exploitiative relations. Originally, I think, this thread arose in response to a sort of half-joking (maybe not) remark about U.S. machoism as the motive. Sure national chauvinism and male chauvinism are co-reinforcing pillars in bourgeois ideology. But why are we going to the other extreme from a vulgar materialist explanation , to a mainly political explanation? Ultimately, anti-communist politics in Viet Nam or Iraq serve capitalist economic "penetration" (economic metaphorical machoism.) "Imperialism" is an economic category, as in _Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism_. In general the Marxist category is "politicaleconomy" not politics and economics.  Why say U.S. imperialism is more poltical than economic ?

Charles Brown


>>> Jim heartfield <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> 06/02 2:38 PM >>>
In message <l03130305b199d76c1344@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
<dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>Why is it so hard to believe that the U.S. really *was* fighting Communism
>in Vietnam? Why do we have to assume the war really was over some precious
>natural resource? The domino effect may have been ludicrous in strictly
>military terms, but if the U.S. hadn't spent the last 50 years destroying
>socialist and nationalist revolutions (and the USSR), the world would be a
>very different place.

I think this makes more sense than the endless quest to find the mineral
deposits that spur the imperialists on to war. You could see what they
meant in the case of Iraq - just (after all it wasn't as if there was a
problem at the level of oil shortages, more likely the war had the
effect of stemming the oil glut). But what on all Earth would be the
natural resource that drove the West into Somalia, or Haiti.

It was always a vulgar reading of imperialism that the troops went in to
dig up natural resources. Adventures like Thatcher's invasion of the
Falklands or the endless baiting of Gadaffi in the eighties were about
establishing political authority in the world, not directly about
resources. Presumably the point was that by winning political
domination, any attack on resources was made less likely.

If you read Norman Schwarzkopf's memoirs he makes it clear that Saddam
Hussein became public enemy number one because that spot was vacated by
the Soviet Union, not because of any economic interest (meaning I
suppose that April Glaspie told the Iraqis the truth, before the truth
was rewritten). The organisation of Nato depended on having a clear
target. When the SU gave up, Schwarzkopf directed US attention to their
former ally. After the Gulf war was over, Colin Powell was quoted as
saying that he was running out of dictators to beat up on, there was
only Fidel and Kim Il Sung left. Political priorities came first.
-- 
Jim heartfield