> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>
> The difficulty in talking to Nathan on these points is that there is a
> blind-spot in his vision. He can see the cruelty and repression on one
> side (the enemy's). But whenever we look at the vicious, arbitrary,
> unjust, militaristic, autocratic and plain repressive in his own
> government's actions, Nathan starts making excuses, imputing honourable
> motives, protesting 'non-equivalence'. The end result is that Nato's
> actions are never in the frame.
And the problem is that most folks wanting to paint every supporter of intervention as imperialists is that they repeatedly and repeatedly ignore the fact that I, like most, will readily agree that the US is "vicious, arbitrary, unjust, militaristic, autocratic and plain repressive" in a range of its actions, from Iraq to its support of the IMF in destroying the lives of hundreds of millions, even billions of people worldwide.
The difference is that just as I admit that capitalist states can occasionally be pressured domestically for reforms of that same brutality, they can also occasionally take actions that on net are an improvement on the general brutality that lies at the regime of global capital.
Whatever NATO's motives (to create motives for a beast reflecting many of the contradictions of the system), the argument is that in the spring of this year, intervention was a better option for the Kosovars than non-intervention.
And whether you admit it or, non-intervention can in many cases be an action that supports imperialist dominance as well. Choosing to shout "stop the bombs" does not stop imperialism in a world where the IMF and trade-based treaties like the WTO and WIPO kill orders of magnitudes more people than any military conflict.
> But all of this is by the by. The real challenge to anti-Imperialists is
> whether they support the break up of Indonesia and the landing of
> Australian troops. The only reason that we are all re-heating the
> argument about Kosovo is because we are afraid to challenge the
> consensus for intervention in Indonesia.
"The breakup of Indonesia"- well, to give you and Carroll credit, you are consistent. Even when the mass murder starts before the troops arrive, you would rather leave local military thugs in charge even in a place like East Timor where the people have overwhelmingly demanded independence and suffered decades of (I will agree) far more brutal repression than the Kosovars.
Do you also oppose the National Health Service as an imperialist occupation of the health care of poor citizens?
--Nathan Newman