Afghanistan
> But it wasn't really "left to its fate" -- unless you assume they should
> have worked out arrangements to 'our' satisfaction in just a decade or
> two. The U.S. is back, and the results are not very pretty.
Unilateral US invasion and unilateral US withdrawal, are these the only options?
> > Consequences for Afghans and their neighbours. US Left is lucky to be
thousands of miles away from Afghanistan and Iraq.
> If it weren't thousands of miles away it wouldn't be the u.s. left but
> something else, and something else yet would be the u.s. left. :-) One
> is born where one is born.
But the communists are distinguished from other working class parties by this: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
> U.S. leftists, in any case, don't have much purchase (as of _now_) on
> anything happening anywhere. We can work at building ourselves up to
> something that _does_ have purchase, and the way to do that is to focus
> on our main task (other tasks will emerge from this focus) of saying
> _NO_ to u.s. interventions around the world.
Yes, but why not leave it to Iraqis to decide how the transition to Iraqi rule is to be managed?
> P.S. the metaphor of "the middle ages" is of course extremely misleading
> (it implies a linear view of history, with everyone following the same
> steps), but taken loosely I think it works.
I know it matters little whether Afghanistan is left in the middle ages, if one lives in Oregon.
Ulhas