>But the war is being prosecuted not by an EU body but by NATO, a
>US-dominated body - a deliberate poke not only in the UN's eye, but
in the
>eye of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. I
thought
>the EU was meant to provide a political counter to US domination; if
the
>war is part of this agenda, they're going about it in a funny way.
I don't think this would constitute an agenda. but it will most certainly constitute an effect, and I'm increasingly thinking the only significant effect. I'm still agnostic about the economics vis us versus eu, perhaps because I haven't grasped the specifics of this; but I do think that the most significant political and historical shifts that will emerge from this is, in balaibar's words, the construction of a European community'. the war is an event to inaugurate this community as nationalist communities can only be inaugurated (war and the focussing on an internal/external enemy). the ECU, the eu flag, etc, all require an event like this to pass from bureaucratic symbols to symbols of a community invested with a significance they would not otherwise acquire. moreover, through the 'shared sacrifice' it breaks with the memory of WW2. there is no reason to think that this isn't the hegemonial handing over ceremony.
in thinking only of us domination, which I do not think is something we should forget, I think we are in danger of thinking that us hegemony is eternal or at least thinking of the us as the constant hegemonic feature of capitalism. the reasons for us intervention are as tenuous as the reasons for NATO intervention. perhaps there is no agenda in terms of strategic interests. perhaps it is only for show.
angela