Anti-Imperialism 101 Re: Hitchens quits Nation

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 5:00 PM -0400 9/27/02, Nathan Newman wrote:
>  > Whether the US military is a kinder master of the Iraqi people than
>>  Saddam Hussein is not the point.  Anti-imperialism is *not charity*,
>>  adopted or not adopted depending on whether denizens of the imperial
>>  center think it's good for Iraq or whatever.  US leftists should
>>  oppose US imperialism because it is against the interest of workers
>>  in the USA.
>
>If the explicit goal of US intervention was to run Iraq from abroad
>dictatorially, that might be an argument, but since the explicit goal is to
>restore power to the Iraqi people through democratic institutions, the nice
>symmetry fails.  You can argue that this will not happen or is not really
>the goal, but you are back to arguing subtext, not stated intention.

I'm not talking about the impact of US intervention on peoples 
abroad, which may be good, bad, or indifferent, if we are simply 
talking about the impact on their _living standards_ alone.  I'm 
talking about the impact of US intervention on the _American_ people, 
for instance, the corruption of the word "democracy" in _American_ 
political discourse that tortuous support for US imperialism 
necessarily brings about: e.g., "The explicit goal of US intervention 
is to restore power to the Iraqi people through _democratic_ 
institutions."  Since when is the US military a "democratic 
institution" in Iraq?
-- 
Yoshie

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