I am coming back not because I disagree totally but because now we know more and these are important questions to discuss.
I think there is no doubt of the hypocrisy of any ruling capitalist government or coalition. But where I differ from some ultra-leftists is in the theory of the state. I think a state has at times to *appear* to stand above classes and for higher interests in order to maintain exploitation. Without having trust in such a state, nevertheless it may at times be progressive.
I think we can see a sort of overall plan for US led global finance capital. It is in favour of large markets and large states. It is very much opposed to terrorism but may be in favour of some forms of local democracy. This is partly because that is its ideal for global capitalism (every one should have freedom to demonstrate for the right to drink Cocal Cola and wear brand label jeans) and partly because this is the best compromise of cultural and ethnic tensions.
In that last respect there is a similarity with the marxist position but for a different class interest. Whereas the proletariat wants national oppression solved on the basis of democracy to aid the unity of the working class, modern international finance capital wants the same result in order to avoid undue interruption of its markets.
>>The point that the Stratfor analysis overlooks is the role of terror in
>>state policy. Engels and Lenin discussed this frankly.
>>
>>Clearly the volume of expelled people which surprised NATO, was only
>>achieved through terror. Terror is a way of enforcing your will that may on
>>balance actually reduce the number of deaths.
>
>No doubt this is correct.
And was also correct in East Timor.
>But a similar thing is happening in Kosovo right
>now. Nearly all of the ethnic Serbs have been driven out by the Albanians,
>along with the gypsies (and others?). Shouldn't the Albanians be denounced
>for similar behavior?
Yes, and I do not think we need doubt the capitalist motives of NATO for wanting to keep some semblance of multi-ethnicity in Kosovo. They have even formed the ghettoes for Serbs that they feared the Russian would create if their troops were independent.
>
>>The entry into Kosovo of 30,000 Serb troops willing to work with fascist
>>paramilitaries....
>
>I don't know if they were fascist or not. Perhaps they were. But it seems
>you could describe the KLA in the same manner.
And these *are* really fascist? I do not see any principled reason for doubt that Arkan's tigers were fascist units which waged terror in Bosnia and in Kosovo. There are many models across the world of regular state forces working in parallel with extra-legal fascist groups (eg South Africa, South America).
>The KLA seems just as fascist as the Serbs used to be. Which is why I
>don't understand the claim that support of the bombing was important to
>keep a united front against fascism.
OK. I would not state it like that. I do think the suppression of the legitimate demands of the Albanian majority of Kosovo was a clear case of fascism, and the 20th century has taught that proletarian forces should ally with bourgeois forces against fascism. I think however the bombing was an imperialist way of conducting that war.
>>I do expect the EU to maintain economic sanctions on Serbia until it
>>respects the democratic rights of all people of the former Yugoslavia,
>>(including the right in the Yugoslav constitution for cities not to be
>>expelled from the country).
>
>This is just another way of saying "we'll lift the economic sanctions
>whenever we feel like it."
Although I think not every action of a government is wrong, I do not mean that we should fantasise as if we were the government.
I think the more difficult question to clarify a real political stance is how to criticse a bourgeois government selectively in a pre-revolutionary period, to pressurise it to make some real changes which aid the balance of progressive forces. Chomsky, and a wide section of the left who opposed the Kosovo war, have supported severe financial sanctions on Indonesia to make it accept peace keeping troops in East Timor.
I think there should be economic sanctions against Serbia and against Turkey for their treatment of their minorities, until this improves.
Meanwhile I think there should be an international development fund for countries like Tanzania that do not oppress their minorities.
Chris Burford
London