On Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:05:44 -0500 Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
responding
to Doug Henwood writes:
>
>
>
> I know you are against the bombing. I claim that it is inconsistent
> to
> be against the bombing AND speak of practical solutions.
Quite right. Doug says that he opposes the bombing but support the use of "considerable force" but he cannot specify what this force is to consist of, or who is to apply it. In the real world, talk of the application of "considerable force" means calling in the US military in at least some capacity. But it is a fundamental part of the US military's doctrine to rely upon air power to soften up an enemy before sending in ground forces. Indeed, some in the US military think that an even expanded application of air power can all but eliminate the need for reliance upon ground forces for destroying an enemy, under certain conditions (i.e. Yugoslavia). If the foregoing is correct then Doug's position must reduce to either "doing nothing" as Carrol and Yoshie advocate or coming out and supporting what Bush & Blair are doing to Afghanistan as Hitchens has done. Realistically, there doesn't seem to be any plausible sort of middle way on this matter.
>And when
> Featherstone speaks of hard questions she is apparently speaking of
> the
> difficulty of working out a positive solution to the "problem" of
> terrorism. But there is no solution, and it is either incoherent or
> in
> bad faith to imply that there is.
There is no solution for the problem of terrorism within the current global political-economic framework. A "war on terrorism" will not prove any more successful than the "war on drugs." Indeed, some officials in the Bush Administration have taken to suggesting that the "war on terrorism" will be rather like the "war on drugs" but if this is so, then this should inspire little confidence in us.
Jim F.
>
> Carrol
>
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