I do not support priapic US-run military overreaction, but somewhat like Doug Henwood, I support a UN-run police action.
But the reason I do goes to the issue of the difference between awful reactionary Islamic theocracies and Islamic clerical fascist movements and states.
So I am contesting the description offered by Lou Paulsen (while not addressing his other points except to say I do not welcome the rise of fascism as a way to build left movements.)
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Lou Paulsen" <wwchi at enteract.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2001 1:16 PM
>
> Well, Kelley, in the first place, I don't think people like the Taliban, the
> Saudi family, or the Islamic republic of Iran -are- fascists in any
> reasonable sense. But they aren't progressives, and I have no trouble
> labeling the Taliban and the Saudi family as reactionaries. But what is
> this business of allowing the forces to emerge? They DID emerge. The U.S.
> government helped them emerge. So now what? Who is going to put them back
> in the bottle? The U.S. government again?
>
> The choice is not between U.S.-supported democracy today and reactionaries
> tomorrow. The choice is between reactionaries today, backed up by the U.S.,
> and "somebody" tomorrow, possibly including reactionaries, but -without-
> U.S. backing. The second is better than the first!
<<SNIP>>
What I have been arguing is that while the term fascism is abused, the Taliban and ObL networks (and only those) are clerical fascist Islamic fundamentalist movements, while the government of Saudi Arabia is running a reactionary orthodox Islamic theocracy that is not accurately called clerical fascist.
That distinction is thin gruel for the folks suffering under either form of repressive oligarchy, but I am arguing it is an important one.
The Horthy Government in 1944 Hungary was right-wing, repressive, and authoritarian. It worked with the German Nazis. But because the Horthy government started to drag its feet in the wholesale extermination of Hungarian Jews under Eichmann, the German Nazi government forced the overthrow of the Horthy regime by the clerical fascist movement called the Hungarian Arrow Cross. The Arrow Cross was actually worse than the reactionary Horthy government, and the Arrow Cross promptly helped march tens of thousands of Jews to their deaths under the direction of Eichmann. So there is a difference between reactionary regimes and fascist regimes.
Let's look at the growth of quasi-fascist nationalist movements in the former Yugoslavia.
I did not support any of the aggressive ethno-nationalist movements that crushed pluralism in that region, be they Serbian/Orthodox, Croatian/Catholic, or Kosovar/Muslim. But Lou Paulsen argues:
> The choice is between reactionaries today, backed up by the U.S.,
> and "somebody" tomorrow, possibly including reactionaries, but -without-
> U.S. backing. The second is better than the first!
Well, that is also the contention of Jared Israel and Michel Chossudovsky who became shameless apologists for every form of Serbian quasi-fascist brutality so long as the Serb thugs were anti-NATO and in opposition to U.S. imperialism.
For more on this see the PRA page called "Antiwar--but not our allies": http://www.publiceye.org/frontpage/911/not_allies.html
Here you will find a link to Jared Israel's denunciation of Noam Chomsky for saying he was against both the NATO bombings and Serbian atrocities. What is wrong with saying "no" to both imperialiam and fascism?
It was arguing against this "anti-imperialism at any cost" position that was a major political reason that journalist Terry Allen was fired from being the editor at CovertAction Quarterly (that, and her insistence that crackpot conspiracy theories be edited out of articles--there were personal reasons as well, but I think they are largely an excuse for covering up the political reasons). And this is now a major reason I no longer write for CAQ (but also because of the nasty anti-labor firing methods).
So the distinctions may seem overly-academic and a form of intellectual pointalism to some, but as someone who is both anti-imperialist and anti-fascist, they are important for assessing tactical and strategic options.
-Chip Berlet