>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.
Nathan, I am sure that you are alive to the injustices that are coincident with Western intervention, and did not mean to suggest otherwise, but what I find difficult is that you make these merely contingent, secondary or superficial. To me they seem all too predictable, essential, primary.
>
>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.
I don't get this argument at all. You must have a very different assessment of the balance of forces at play in the world than me. For more than a decade national liberation and labour movements have been in retreat. So where is this pressure pushing imperialism to act on our behalf? Strangely, at the very time when these movements really were buoyant, imperialism was unremittingly aggressive. Now that it is under no pressure at all, it is forced to do good. No, I think that you are simply getting used to the idea that the West rules, because you do not see an alternative. And that seems like a shame to me.
>
>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.
Well, that's the argument, but I just don't think it holds water. The evidence to the contrary is too extensive.
>
>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.
Well, I would be the first to admit that opposition to Western
imperialism is largely rhetorical, but I am not sure that the answer is
to get on board the gunboat and embrace the enemy.
>
>"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.
I think you are being a bit naive. Would you really welcome the break up of Indonesia? Supporting one separatist movement, are you prepared to sponsor them all? That is the conclusion that they will already have drawn. The UN's actions have already led to the destabilisation of Habibie's government. Do you really want to see the West assume responsibility for ruling the whole of Indonesia?
>
>Do you also oppose the National Health Service as an imperialist occupation
>of the health care of poor citizens?
No, as a rule, Nurses do not carry guns or come in tanks. But the NHS is not all that it's cracked up to be. -- Jim heartfield