[lbo-talk] Re: "Save Darfur" etc (and other responses)

ravi gadfly at exitleft.org
Sat Apr 29 10:42:50 PDT 2006


--------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message includes replies to: Doug Henwood, John Mage ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Messages in this collection:

* Re: [lbo-talk] Re: "Save Darfur" etc

* Re: [lbo-talk] "Save Darfur": Evangelicals and Official ...

* Re: [lbo-talk] "Save Darfur": Evangelicals and Official ...

=========== Message 1 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: "Save Darfur" etc

At around 28/4/06 5:50 pm, John Mage wrote:
>
> If the US had sent maximum supply to the USSR&UK, but no military to
> Europe in WW2 (for all practical purposes the situation up until June of
> 1944 - when the Nazis had already lost), then the Red Army would have
> reached the channel, the partisans would have been in power in all the
> original EU, and the world would be a far far better place.
>

I don't understand the above... are you saying that the world would be a better place if the Soviet Union + Bloc had included all of Europe? This seems patently untrue to me!

=========== Message 2 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] "Save Darfur": Evangelicals and ...

At around 28/4/06 5:42 pm, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> I don't think the U.S. government can be trusted to do any good abroad.
> You wouldn't hire a convicted embezzler as your investment advisor,
> would you?
>

So, then, who else? Do you really think the rest of the world is pure as the driven snow? ;-) The U.S gets away with doing monumental harm today because it has the power to do so (and so would most "civilization"s). But for that very reason (its power) it is the best equipped and suited to act in a positive manner.

=========== Message 3 =========== Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] "Save Darfur": Evangelicals and...

At around 28/4/06 4:28 pm, Doug Henwood wrote:
> ravi wrote:
>
>> Where do you guys get "always believe military force is the solution"?
>
> I didn't say that. I said that there are a lot of liberals who
> desperately want to be seen as not-wimps.
>

Yes you didn't say that. The other guy (Steve Robinson?) did. Yes, liberals want to look muscular (hence the excessive scientism, IMHO), but in this case, we might as well employ Occam's Razor before looking at their (our) psychological motivations: the simpler explanation, I believe, works quite well. We are confronted by a genocide and support action to stop it. We could do a protest march in Darfur, or create a blog, argue with other leftists on the Internet, etc. We could also pressure our government to work with the U.N to enforce order.


> I do think, as a
> matter of empirical record bordering on principle, that nothing
> involving the US military is good, or can be good. There's no way the
> Pentagon should be recruited to "save Darfur."

Are there no instances of the U.S participation in U.N peacekeeping, that has led to a betterment of the situation? I find the above difficult to believe. Do I need to Google?


> For Americans, our prime
> responsibility is to stop the abuse of Iraq, and everything else should
> take a back seat to that for now.

Genocide should take a back seat? You cannot be saying that. So, what are you saying?

--ravi



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