More complex consciousness and understanding develops _within_ the movement, but _never_ takes the form of rejecting anyone who accepts the foundational slogan. "Support the Great Man Hussein," "All violence is wrong," what have you. All are welcome.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Tahir Wood Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:10 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] "From False Ideas to Correct Practice"
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
On Jan 30, 2012, at 1:54 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> So the incorrect analysis No Blood for Oil is after all more correct than
> any quibbles with it are.
You don't have to agree with the slogan to have opposed the Iraq war, you know.
T: I in fact agree with the slogan, but there is a more important point, and that is that imperialist foreign policy decisions are always multi-factoral in nature. There is never one single underlying cause. For example, I think a factor in all of America's military strategies since (and including) Hiroshima have been demonstrative in nature. They are all to some extent about shock and awe and saying to the world, don't get out of line, see what we can do. In other words, one observes a crystallization of a few very important strategic considerations in any decision to go to war. Two of the most ubiquitous considerations are clearly punishment of disobedience and demonstration of might. But nevertheless, consider why it is that first Iraq and then Iran have moved directly into the firing line and not, say, North Korea. I suggest the two factors that make the big difference here are (a) oil and (b) Israel.
Coming back to the original point, I think the broadly correct idea that was in the minds of virtually all anti-war protesters was that the given reasons for the war were false. I can't see how you could really have had a mass anti-war movement if there had (improbably) been universal belief that (a) Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction and (b) Saddam Hussein was connected with 911. In other words, a large part of the public, especially in the UK, correctly perceived that there were imperialistic designs rather than defensive ones at stake. And that is theory, at least with a small 't'.
Tahir