I said "four more years of wars, occupations, and economic woes," not "four more years of new large-scale wars, occupations, and economic woes."
Whether Bush or Kerry gets elected, the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine will continue, with counter-insurgency war in Iraq likely escalating; and the counter-insurgency wars elsewhere in which Washington has gotten directly involved -- such as those in Colombia ("The United States provided training to almost 13,000 Colombian soldiers in 2003, almost 4,000 more than it provided to Iraqis and almost 8,000 more than to Afghans. Moreover, the administration has pushed Congress to increase the 400-man legislative ceiling on the number of U.S. troops and contractors operating in Colombia in order to increase training and other operations in country" [Jim Lobe, " Aid Grows to Latin American Military," October 6, 2004, <http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=25750>]) and the Philippines (Pepe Escobar, "All Quiet on the Second Front," October 7, 2004, <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/FJ07Ae02.html>) -- will also continue. That's what I meant by "four more years of wars, occupations, and economic woes."
As I argued in a previous message <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041004/022589.html>, the US military's manpower capacity has become stretched to the point that, barring the last resort of conscription, Washington will have to relinquish its military hold on Europe and East Asia (especially the troops stationed in Germany and South Korea). It can barely continue the occupation of Iraq as it is, and it cannot afford any new big invasion and occupation requiring additional hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground.
What Washington can still afford to initiate is a missile strike against Iran and things of that nature. Barack Obama's recent remarks on the subject are instructive.
<blockquote>In an interview with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune published September 26, Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama said he would favor the use of "surgical" missile strikes against Iran if it failed to bow to Washington's demand that it eliminate its nuclear energy program. Obama also said that, in the event of a coup that removed the Musharraf regime in Pakistan, the US should attack that nation's nuclear arsenal.
Obama, the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention, is being hailed as a "rising star" in the Democratic Party. In his Tribune interview, he said explicitly what is implicit in repeated statements by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and other party leaders. They have frequently attacked the Bush administration's policy in Iraq on the grounds that it is diverting attention from supposedly greater threats, in particular Iran and North Korea.
Obama told the Tribune, "[T]he big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures, including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point are we going to, if any, are we going to take military action?"
Answering his own question, Obama said, "I hope it doesn't get to that point. But realistically, as I watch how this thing has evolved, I'd be surprised if Iran blinked at this point." (Tom Mackaman, "Democratic keynote Speaker Barack Obama Calls for Missile Strikes on Iran," October 1, 2004, <http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/obam-o01.shtml>)</blockquote>
If that's the voice of the great Black hope of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, you can imagine what the other wing is ready to do. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>