Before the invasion, reservations of most of the power elite were relatively minor, however, as they hoped that the Bush Team would line up allies in the manner of the first Gulf War. Hence their votes for authorizing the president to go to war on Iraq: 110 Democrats voted for the war on October 10-11, 2002 (29 Democrats voting for the war and 21 against in the Senate; 81 Democrats voting for the war and 126 against in the House). After the invasion, their reservations increased, but not enough to terminate the occupation any time soon -- not even enough to send Bush back to Texas.
>Subversion is their preferred option because it is less costly and
>less publicly noticeable and objectionable than invasion. It's
>success derives from the higher US standard of living which is a
>powerful lure for the world's peoples, who often suffer from the
>illusion they can reproduce it by simply copying its political and
>economic forms and doing the US's bidding.
That's a class issue as well. For the bourgeoisie and (segments of) petit-bourgeoisie, more profits and higher standards of living that can be had through an alliance with Washington are no illusion. They usually get richer after the collapse of anti-Washington governments. Even in Iraq, some people are probably getting richer than before. The poorer people tend to be more patriotic, but most of them are not well organized and motivated enough to defend their governments from subversions, usually because their governments have too many faults of their own to command a very strong allegiance. As you put it, "Corrupt governments which have already alienated their people or governments which preside over a deterioration of living standards are obviously the most vulnerable." But corruption in itself is normally not enough to alienate most people. The most important thing to do is, first of all, to crush the targeted government's ability to deliver, through economic sanctions, conditionalities attached to loans, trade and investment policies, etc. That was the case in Iraq as well: the invasion followed the economic sanctions.
Washington is also extremely good at exploiting ethnic or national conflicts in other countries as well: the best example is Bosnia and Kosovo in Yugoslavia. It offers itself as a protector of an embattled ethnic minority. Had Russia been militarily weaker than it is and had it not been armed with nuclear weapons, Washington would have used Chechnya as a pretext for attacks more aggressively.
Then, there is the rhetoric of protecting women (e.g., in Afghanistan and even Iraq), protecting children (e.g., in Africa and Nepal), etc.
Leftists need to discuss how all weapons in Washington's imperial arsenal have been and are being used, rather than simply opposing massive invasions (which Washington can do only infrequently anyhow).
>Notwithstanding that invasions are ostensibly less successful than
>subversion, it doesn't follow that targeted regimes would prefer to
>be invaded rather than subverted, and I don't think you meant to
>imply as such in your remarks.
Precisely because most people are more opposed to invasion than subversion does Washington have trouble achieving its objectives through the former.
Leftists do not prefer invasion to subversion, but we should not prefer subversion to invasion either. We should simply explain that Washington has been more successful at subversion than invasion and that the former should be opposed *as vigorously as* the latter, especially since *the former can serve as a prelude to the latter* (in Iraq, Haiti, etc.).
>John Bizwas wrote:
>
>"The Clinton administration commissioned studies to involve the use
>of the US military's ground forces...planning before and after the
>1998 act of legislation involved the use of US ground forces."
>--------------------------------------
>Undoubtedly such planning was undertaken. Contingency planning is a
>regular, congressionally mandated, requirement of US defence policy
>under all administrations.
That's what needs to be changed, and it cannot be changed by voting for Democrats. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * "Proud of Britain": <http://www.proudofbritain.net/ > and <http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/>