Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>
>
> It is possible for several movements to compete for
> people's loyalty - disagreeing on philosophical points
> but agreeing that the foreigners must go.
>
> Wasn't this Mao's conclusion during the latter years
> of counter-insurgency against the Japanese occupiers?
>
I think Mao's conception of the United Front presupposed the existence of the CPC and the Red Army. It is highly doubtful that without such a center there would have been any resistance to the occupation that amounted to more than annoyance. And of course the sheer size of China, both in area and population, was a major factor. And finally, though the Nationalists attacked the Reds nearly as often as they fought the Japanese, Japan had to keep _some_ troops along the line fronting on Nationalist territory.
I doubt that there will be anything in Iraq to correspond to _either_ Algeria or Vietnam. That doesn't mean that terrible troubles will not eventually confront the U.S. Empire in its current form; it merely means that we can't predict them _or_ base our theory and practice on such a prediction.
Liberia is more interesting in some ways. It parallels Haiti & the early interventions in Yugoslavia: i.e., it represents a way for the imperial forces to bewilder leftists into helping to create a favorable climate for further war crimes by the u.s.
I've always said that I carried only one real grudge -- against the Weatherman faction in SDS. I'm moving towards adding a second grudge: towards leftists who argue or have argued that u.s. intervention abroad can _ever_ be a positive force -- particularly those who supported u.s. interventions in Haiti, Yugoslavia, East Timor, or Afghanistan.
Carrol