After they win...

Peter K. peterk at enteract.com
Sun Oct 21 10:55:50 PDT 2001


Carrol, in tentative, nuanced mode:
>Not a major matter. The Vietnam War sort of dented those bedrocks of
>popular support for imperialist adventures, the white man's burden and
>the individual superiority of the Americna Soldier to the Little Yellow
>Men. The result had been what came to be called the Vietnam Syndrome.
>What a drag on U.S. freedom of operation in the international arena. A
>Good War might change that.

Shouldn't you put quotes around Good War? With the Cold War more than 10 years gone, I doubt a Good War - as opposed to a Vietnam - will help to cure the Vietnam syndrome. As Clinton learned, foreign intervention doesn't help in the opinion polls. (Halberstam's new book looks like a good encapsulation of U.S. foreign policy in the 90s. The small bit on Rwanda is truly depressing and surreal.) George the First's loss after the Gulf War was illustrative, too.

If 9.11 hadn't happened, I think the left would have made progess on both Columbia and the war on drugs *and* on Israel and the Palestinians, despite the ruling class's intentions. Also, the U.S. was recently kicked off the UN committees on human rights and drugs (was terrorism in with the drugs?). Also, Kofi Annan, Stiglitz, and Naipul all won Nobel prizes. I think there is a general move against U.S. imperialism so we are in less danger of bolstering it by supporting military action.


>So my mild hypothesis was that the Gulf War was only incidentally about
>direct imperial interests (oil etc) and more fundamentally about
>maintaining the cultural foundations for the exercise of imperial power.
>I am a bit sceptical, for instance, that the current war is about an oil
>pipeline. But I'm not going to argue the point particularly.
>
>Carrol



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