>
>
>Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>> Carrol Cox wrote:
>>
>> >U.S. imperialism _must_ establish and maintain military bases in the
>> >mideast.
>>
>> Who makes decisions for this thing, U.S. imperialism? A robot?
>
>Consult any of the analysts of imperialism. Luxemburg. Lenin. Trotsky.
>Wood. Others. I'm not going to try to rewrite any of them. At an
>empirical level 60 years plus british/french predecessors, plus world
>war 1 gives a pretty good picture of _something_ is driving them. And
>hardly a week goes by now without someone somewhere focusing on the
>building of permanent more or less (temporarily) impregnable bases and
>steadily withdrawing from more exposed positions.
Well that would require withdrawing from Iraq, because there are few places on earth right now that seem more pregnable than that poor country.
Maybe you missed my point. US imperialism can't do anything because it's not really a person - it's a set of institutions, policies, traditions, ideologies, etc., that only take life because there are actual actors who decide and do things. Different factions and different personalities do different things. I'm far from alone in doubting that Gore would have invaded Iraq - so how overdetermined can The System be? (Or did The System demand the Florida vote count scandal, and the ultimate Supreme Court decision?) I know Gore wouldn't have made nice with Iraq; he'd probably have continued sanctions and bombing. But invading was hardly an absolute necessity. If The System had such a jones for invading Iraq, why didn't Bush's daddy continue on to Baghdad in 1991? Why didn't Clinton invade? He had eight whole years to do it.
Doug