>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.
This is a serious and important debate. Although this sort of distinction may be fine, it is important to assess concretely what forms of resistance to US imperialism and the emerging Empire, to support. At its best Empire at least supports bourgeois democratic rights.
I do not actually agree that the 5,000 killed in the WTC were totally innocent, in that they, like most inhabitants of the rich imperialist countries, are institutionally blind to the urgent need for global economic justice. But in legal terms they were of course wholly innocent, and there is indeed a struggle where on balance it is better to have a global standard that people cannot be arbitrarily killed by one side or another. Were terrorism to spread it would seriously damage the potential unity of ordinary working people.
Now there are some situations, where there is communal fighting between nationalist elements, where it may be better that there is global coercion to stop it. And despite the imperialist way this was done, I am glad there was not a full repeat of the Srebrenca massacre of muslims, and I am glad that the Christians of East Timor were not crushed by muslim nationalists in turn.
Clearly the Taliban regime violates the bourgeois individual rights of women, and tha Mahathir regime, while being anti-imperialist violates freedom of political expression and has a corrupt attitude to sexual blackmail.
I would not on these grounds be in favour of the Empire intervening in either country, but these violations should not be ignored by the left. When the US regime obviously is not going to ignore the attack on the WTC, and this leads to a conflict with the Taliban, we can argue as much as we can for negotiations under the United Nations. But if the Taliban gets destabilised, I would have thought leftists might well see a bourgeois democratic regime as preferable, even if it is more subservient in some respects to the US and to the Empire.
While making these distinctions about bourgeois democratic rights, we must stress the right to economic justice for countries, nations and peoples.
Bush at Shanghai was stressing the slogal of freedom, but significantly he said little about global justice.
Chris Burford