> Shall we Marxist-Leninists say we told you so ?
Why not? That's about all you got left.
> What's China and Viet Nam ? potted plants ? And more to the point, are they threats the way the Americans claimed so fiercely for so long, and not long ago . The U.S. foreign policy bureaucrats are not trustworthy in defining foreign threats.
Dennis: I am very skeptical about the US "crusade," and made that clear in the posts you selectively quote. I think the unilateral approach to war was and is wrong, and that the thousands of Afghan dead could have been avoided. That said, this argument that "Well, the US created al Qaeda, so it's getting what it deserves," is utterly vacant, indeed borderline obscene.
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CB: What about the argument that is not regarding just deserts, but that by bombing Afghanistan the U.S. is making it more likely that Americans , including you and me, will be killed by terrorists ( who will be retalitiating in their minds regardless of whether we think they are just or not) in the future. The reasoning being that the U.S. attacks on Iraq from 1991 to the present, and U.S. other military activities in that region were the CAUSE ( not justification) of the September 11 events ?
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US business interests helped to build-up Hitler in Germany; and when he used the military technology he was freely allowed to develop and test on his enemies, I don't remember the left (apart from some obscure groups, that is) saying "Well, the capitalists helped create Hitler, so there you go!" They recognized the threat as early as Spain and fought against it. They didn't cease fighting it when the US state got involved, a state, the left then could have said, that prospered from slavery and imperialism. Leftists fought alongside and for an imperial state against a common enemy. If you don't see a theocratic terrorist network openly devoted to mass murder and the repeal of progressive gains as an enemy, regardless of how you feel about the US, then I don't know what to tell you
CB: (This is where your barbs at Lenin and Marx readers, or Marxist-Leninists does not seem to connect. It would seem you would acknowledge that Marxist-Leninists were fighting these reactionaries when the johnny come lately U.S. was supporting the reactionaries)
But assume, that there are no Marxist-Leninists as players on the scene now ( despite potted plants afar) and the U.S. is on the right side against the new hitlers even though they had supported them the way Henry Ford and others supported the old Hitler; why isn't the U.S. the better candidate for the new hitler or the creator of the new hitler there rather than the irradicator of the hitlerism, given its dismal record since WWII, the last time the U.S. got it right ? Do we trust all these repressive moves Bush is making in the U.S., or is it impossible for things to be even worse in the homeland usa ? Who is really the proto-hitler and who has more weapons of mass destruction than anybody ? And how come Bush has not gone on national tv to emphasize that the anthrax may have come from rightwing terrorists in the U.S. with access to the U.S. government stock if he is really trying to protect us all from terrorist attacks ? That puts a different slant on the level of mass d! estructiveness of the "foreign" terrorists in the U.S., and it is obviously dishonest of Bush to slur them together. I do not trust that Bush is fighting "the nazis of 2001" in Afghanistan. That is definite bullshit. And more than 90% of americans know it.
Since this is the left business observer, if this was a business deal, would you trust George Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield when they come to you and ask for your money guaranteeing that this will be a war to end terrorism and that this the sure and best way to prevent any future terrorist attacks on you and yours ? Would you make the investment ? I sure as hell wouldn't . The whole thing stinks. And you don't have to be a marxist leninist to smell that.