I want to underline Michael's point about how laughable is left debate on the niceities of humanitarian interventions. In the past of course all such interventions have been anything but laughable themselves. Haiti anyone?
Really, kneejerk anti-imperialism is the the only intellectually responsible perspective.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Michael Smith Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 6:26 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Achcar's latest
On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:21:56 -0400 // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> Of course the one crucial thing we will not be able to verify is what
> might have happened without the UNSC intervention. So maybe this
> exercise won't really help.
Indeed. All these instrumental arguments turn on hypotheticals: how many people will be killed if "we" do X or not. But of course we have no way of knowing these numbers. What we *do* know is what the Empire does whenever it gets a foot in the door.
It's amazing how many political arguments turn on confident statements about what "would" happen in such-and-such a scenario. You'd think we all had crystal balls.
Then of course there's the laughable conceit of imagining that we Lefties have any responsibility to carefully calibrate the degree of our anti-imperialism based on the precise details of the situation in whatever hapless land is currently in the humanitarian crosshairs. Our carefully-calibrated policy recommendations to NATO and the White House will have absolutely no effect at all. But a resolute and uncompromised anti-imperial stance might actually stand a chance of changing a few peoples' minds.
Sorry to restate what I take to have been Ravi's Swiftian point at such humorless and pedantic length.
-- --
Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
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