>For now, those of us in the West enjoy the luxury of
>passing a laundry list of moral judgments. But I
>wonder, if I was facing air to surface missiles from
>American planes or a battery cables to the testicles
>style of government paid for by Washington would I be
>terribly bothered with who was Marxist or liberal or
>in support of trade unions or other lovely things or
>would I just make common cause with those around me
>and worry about the inevitable schisms and potential
>new repressions later?
Nice observation. I think the point, though, is not that the problem is with which political force Lebanese citizens side with to protect themselves from Israel missiles, but that the fevered western anti-imperialist always portrays such support in subaltern countries as unambigious adoption of the resisting force's political agenda (if, of course, it's a position they already agree with). So Lebanese strategic siding with Hezbollah--to, you know, save their lives--becomes absolute, univocal allegiance to Hezbollah, which westerners had better swear to or they are essentially collaborators with Israel. It's total crap, of course; as the example of Salti and others shows, Lebanese are able to "support" Hezbollah but still hate them and don't all speak with one voice, even if certain western leftists, for their own political motives, claim otherwise.
>In short, if "rigid anti-imperialism" is the problem
>is 'flexible anti-imperialism' possible in those
>places where the blood gets spilled?
I would put forward that "anti-imperialism," no matter what adjective you attach to it, provides a pretty poor way of thinking about relations between states.