[lbo-talk] Chomsky v Marko

[M.A. Hoare]

> Beyond that, I'm curious if Marko and MPug believe that Western military 
> action against former friends/allies has anything to do with moral 
> conscience, as if the US suddenly saw the "progressive" light (putting 
> aside the fact that states -- esp imperial states -- do not possess 
> "morals," but interests) in the Balkans and the Middle East. It sure 
> seems like they do. But if they don't, then it appears they're applauding 
> imperial violence so long as it can kinda fit into a "humanitarian" 
> construct. If that's the case, then they're not backing and encouraging a 
> real institutional shift in power relations, but squinting their eyes and 
> pretending that bombing Iraqi civilians with white phosphorus and Mark-77 
> fuel bombs is comparable to marching for civil rights in Alabama in 1963.

I'm not particularly interested in the purity or otherwise of the motives 
of Bush and Blair; they're probably a mixture of moral motives and 
self-interest, like those of the rest of us. Bush comes across to me as a 
less cynical and self-interested individual than Michael Moore, for 
example, but maybe that's just my bias... But whatever their motives, I'm 
glad the US and Britain liberated Western Europe from the Nazis in the 
1940s; I'm glad they contained and overthrew the Soviet Union; and I'm glad 
they rescued the Kosovo Albanians in 1999. If that's all the result of 
selfish imperialist-capitalist interests; well then, long live selfish 
imperialist-capitalist interests !