|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
|| [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Greg Schofield (...)
||
|| The added element has to be seen in the light of an emerging
|| international civilty which the retrobates in the US are
|| resisting with unilateral action of which Afganhistan is a
|| clear expression. The first thing ruled out, was any
|| diplomatic/legal or peaceful resolution, nor can that be
|| brought up - for this is what Bush is struggling against (he
|| struggles not against terrorism but for US terrorism).
||
Yes, that's what makes it even scarier. These guys are cavemen compared to the trilateralists.
(...)
||
|| In this ObL has the advantage that his strategy is actually
|| working, he is using and will continue to us attacks to draw in
|| US forces and destroy the regimes of the Middle East that have
|| been sustained by it. The US in the other hand is locked in a
|| struggle which cannot have an outcome, there is a severe
|| disconnection between its public aims and its methods and that
|| contradiction is irresolvable in this struggle (that is the
|| struggle Bush is actually waging).
||
You're implicitly accepting the ObL story, i.e. the official excuse for this imperialist war. 9-11 is just another Gulf of Tonkin.
As for the administration's public aims, they are notable for their unverifiability. The "war on terrorism" is described as an open-ended and partly covert project. There'll never be a PERT diagram for "Enduring Freedom". We'll never know when "terrorism" is defeated or even when the limited goal of killing ObL has been accomplished, especially if they use the tactical nukes they're itching to try out.
The real program of the "oiligarchy" (1) in power has been summed up by its principal ideologue Cheney as "go where the oil is". It is a frighteningly simplistic project which presupposes that the Taliban can be defeated either politically or militarily and that the popular upheavals that this will provoke can be contained by the client regimes in the region. The authors of this brain-dead scheme are now in disarray. Cheney and Bush have left the (mis)management of the war to the generals. Cheney is unable to produce an alternative strategy. Rumsfeld, who seems to be a better military thinker, is not part of the inner circle. Powell the multilateralist has likewise been sidelined from the start.
The "ObL strategy" OTOH is nothing more than the repressed rage of the South. ObL is a symbol, albeit one that fulfils its function to perfection. He's no more a mastermind than Che was for third-world liberation struggles.
|| Bush has to draw in as much of the International force he can
|| muster, maintaining it is a struggle against an opposite force
|| pulling from below and from above which wants a move towards a
|| real international civility where the US becomes a nation among
|| many.
In a North-South war, the "pull" of "international civility" on the US will be, I fear, little more effective than than opposition of France and a few other European countries to the Vietnam war. It's the EU's big chance to make a difference and show it can stand up to the US but I'm afraid they'll fudge and cave as usual.
|| It is a battle towards exhaustion. The critical point
|| will be the first, however minor, defeat of US military forces
That's already happened: US special forces got whipped badly at Mollah Omar's base and the Taliban probably did shoot down a chopper loaded with troops, the remains of which US planes promptly obliterated to destroy the evidence of the US defeat. The only critical point was when the US killed the first Afghans, as opposed to Qaeda Arabs. Once you kill Afghans, whether combatant or not, you're fighting a nation, as Brzezinski rightly pointed out to CNN. Only it goes much further than that.
|| (not another terrorist attack on the US which will momentarily
|| strengthen, fatally, US resolve). At that point the Middle East
|| is likely to erupt and then things are really going to get out of hand.
As long as the media is held on a leash US resolve is unlikely to change. People in the US are bored with the propaganda but they wiolently object to being shown the truth (Al Jazeera) as well. The bible-crazy nation that the US has become is predisposed to manipulation by religious or political evangelists.
Final note: As the US embarks on the road to fascism, the Bush administration has already prepared its defence - an armed one, of course - against an eventual Nurenberg. Gary Ashwill posted this:
>From Al-Ahram
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/558/4war1.htm
(snip)
Meanwhile, the US State Department -- taking advantage of the frenzy and confusion that followed the terrorist acts -- endorsed the American Service-members Protection Act (ASPA) on November 5. The legislation authorises the US to use force to "liberate" any US or allied persons detained on behalf of the proposed International Criminal Court (ICC), which will be based in The Hague, Netherlands. It also prohibits US military assistance to those states that ratify the ICC treaty except for NATO members and some major non-NATO allies.
1) Don!t take "oiligarchy" too seriously. Although Exxon's Condy and Halliburton's Cheney point in that direction, you also have the Bush connection to defence contractor Carlyle, and of course everyone gets a piece of the Pentagon cake, from Detroit to Palo Alto.
Hakki