Propositions generally take one of two forms: either (a) they can be verified or falsified by empirical evidence and proofs, proven or disproven by actual data --either historical or contemporary -- by sound or faulty logic, or (b) they are articles of faith which can not be either verified or falsified.
Now if the proposition you suggest below -- that America will always intervene on the wrong side, and so its intervention must always be opposed -- is of type (a), then it seems to me that you must actually deal with the examples I provided you which I believe shows it to be false as a _universal_ theorem: not only the missed opportunities to squelch the genocide in Rwanda, but also the support of sanctions against apartheid South Africa. If it is (b), and America is by definition the "evil empire,'" the "Great Satan," which must do wrong, then there is no point in discourse and conversation over the question, since there is no proof, no evidence which will satisfy the true believer that this is a far too simple view of the world. This is the type of position that Heartfield, Yoshie and Carroll advocate, and it is like arguing with a fundamentalist.
<< Leo Casey wrote:
>The question of the 'right' of the US to intervene in the Rwandan situation
can
>not be separated, IMHO, from the obligations it -- and every other nation --
>had to prevent and stop genocide.
But isn't this the justification America and the other great powers gave for
their "humanitarian" intervention over Kosovo? As far as I know, their
evidence of genocide subsequently turned out to be a carefully crafted BIG
LIE. Their intervention on that occasion in fact had nothing at all to do
with humanitarianism. Or I could go back a bit further to the time when
intervention against Iraq was based on "defence" of Marsh Arabs and Kurds. A
lot of the left even fell for these arguments at the time and failed to
oppose the Allies' bloody war which culminated in the massacre of several
hundred thousand Iraqis, like "fish in a barrel" (as an American military
spokesman put it), on the road to Basra.
So do we trust these people to intervene some of the time? All of the time?
Never? I may be what you consider a bit "simple", but given America's record
of oppressive interventions to date around the world, I'd argue that we
should never give them an inch.
Russell >>
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --