[lbo-talk] Boycott Japan and China

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at videotron.ca
Fri Aug 11 07:46:18 PDT 2006


Yoshie wrote:.
>
> On 8/10/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>> The following article, with its quotations from bigniew Brzezinski gives
>> support to Marvin Gandall's argument that Iraq is a neo-con aberration,
>> as opposed to my argument that the invasion of the Mideast is consistent
>> with, even demanded by, the long-range interests of u.s. imperialism. We
>> shall see.
>
> What Washington has been doing about Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran,
> etc. sure is consistent with US imperialism...
================================= You think?

I'm not very impressed with the results of the Bush administration's deployment of ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan or its encouragement of the similar use of Isreali troops in Lebanon. Nor I am impressed with its early unilateralist threats to pursue the same agenda against the other two members of the evil axis, Iran and North Korea, after it disposed of Iraq.

I think the views of the bipartisan Democratic and Republican defence and foreign policy experts, including Brzenzinski, are much more realistic (and consequently more effective) in their recognition that the interests of the Empire are best furthered by the use of political and economic rather than military action against unfriendly regimes, and that this is best undertaken in concert with its allies. That is not to say they don't rely on military power as a last resort, but they correctly warned against getting bogged down in self-defeating ground wars which provide the wrong kind of "demonstration effect".

These lessons have also impressed themselves on the Bush administration in the past three years.

You're not suggesting, are you, that the Bush administration would be better advised, from the standpoint of US imperialism, to revert to unilateralism and reliance on its high-tech armed forces - the (ideological) view which governed its first three years in office?



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