[lbo-talk] Better at Subversion than Invasion (Old News Item)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Marvin wrote:
>We may not, in terms of the moral issues, see much difference 
>between armed invasion and the more customary lower-level forms of 
>US aggression involving selective air strikes, political subversion, 
>and economic sabotage, which have also resulted indirectly in many 
>thousands of civilian casualties. But the Iranians, North Koreans, 
>Cubans, Venezuelans, and others targeted for regime change by the US 
>clearly do, and for good reason. In the one case, they are able to 
>retain their national sovereignity and the capacity to keep fighting 
>against sanctions and/or subversion; in the other, they are 
>subjected to foreign invasion and occupation and attendant 
>destruction and chaos.

If you look at the past and present records of Washington's invasions 
and subversions, it's clear that Washington has been best at helping 
pro-Washington regimes suppress domestic challengers, that it has 
been better at subversions (from Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Afghanistan 
to Yugoslavia and Ukraine) than invasions, and that the peoples 
targeted by it (with the great exceptions of Cubans and Venezuelans) 
have been generally better at fighting against its invasions than 
protecting their governments from its subversions or overthrowing 
pro-Washington regimes.

Washington has almost perfected the art of subversions, of which the 
so-called Orange Revolution is the latest example (cf. 
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/12/code-orange.html>); activists 
and organizers on the left can take a refresher course in mass 
actions for "regime changes" from Washington and its "civil society" 
fronts, since their "regime change" manual is based upon their study 
of activists and organizers on the left anyway.

In contrast, when Washington actually invaded nations bigger than 
Grenada and Panama, it either couldn't achieve its maximum objective 
(Korea) or suffered an ignominious defeat (Vietnam) or beat hasty 
retreats (Lebanon, Somalia).

Check out the "Field Manual-Interim No. 3-07.22" (a manual for 
counterinsurgency operations), a link to which Julio Huato forwarded 
here: 
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041129/028071.html>. 
The manual recognizes the political reality that I describe above: 
"One of the key recurring lessons is that the United States cannot 
win other countries' wars for them, but can certainly help legitimate 
foreign governments overcome attempts to overthrow them. US forces 
can assist a country confronted by an insurgency by providing a safe 
and secure environment at the local level and continuously building 
on the incremental success" (p. vi).
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* "Proud of Britain": <http://www.proudofbritain.net/ > and 
<http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/>