On Wednesday, November 14, 2001, at 10:24 , Jeffrey Blankfort wrote:
>
> Marty, I appreciate that old friendships die hard, but Todd read himself
> out of the movement, by any reasonable criteria that one can use, not
> the least of which being that he has supported every US war for the past
> decade: the Gulf War, the war against Serbia and now the war of
> conquest in Central Asia.
I guess the problem that I have here is understanding how any of this
fits with or against the alledged anti-war movement of the vietnam
genertion - especially given the somewhat comical farce of the 1978
blitzkrieg into cambodia, that lead to the Hanoi Regime becoming
bogged down in a guerrilla war in kampuchea. Granted, after years
of being mired in that war the Hanoi Regime would finally find a
political solution to save face and bug out - but was there some
alternative that could have saved the kampuchean civilians who had
suffered first under the Pol Pot regime, and then under the Iron
boot of the Soviet Hegomonist Puppet State. { not like as if the
valiant People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China
didn't try to rectify the matter... }
But then again, as most folks will recall, the anti-war movement
suffered that 'significant blow' when Nixon ended the draft, and
with it allowed so many of the formerly concerned that they might
have to actually make a choice one way or the other about the war
to simply slide off to other more pressing personal issues. So I
have never taken to the simplistic assumption that there was any
one singular 'anti-war movement' - since the 'young americans for
freedom' and the 'young republicans' who were alledgedly rightwingers
were as clearly anti-draft/anti-do_not_mess_up_my_life as were all
of the really committed anti-war types.
In the intervening years since the first cease fire was signed between
the coalition forces and saddam hussein, it seems reasonably clear that
'sanctions alone' would not have worked at ending the Iraqi occupation
of Kuwait. So there are still open structural problems in which
anti-persian gulf war movement thesis makes any sense. That everyone
went to sleep as soon as the CNN 24x7 coverage bailed is not at all
surprising - since most americans didn't even notice when the US
Military Aid and Assistance Group (MAAG) became Military Assistance
Command Vietnam (MACV).... and it
really was not a big deal until the draft really kicked in, and
well it really was not a big deal once nixon signed the peace accord
and everything just fell off the radar, even though the media did
come back briefly to cover the fall of saigon.
This with an anti-war movement against the War with Serbia? Hello?
that way is so filled with chaotic silliness that it is almost a
total convolution of massed irony. Are we suppose to suddenly lump
together such noted anti-war groupings as Pat Robertson's 700 Club
and Jerry Fallwells' Moral Majority, and their support of the
Specialist New's Case - wherein a specialist in the US Army opposed
the issuance of the U.N. Blue Beret to their unit, since it was being
posted to Macedonia, and was, well, so like really gross? Or is there
some other specifically anti-war movement that we should be thinking
about that felt that it was so clearly wrong to prevent Ethnic Cleansing
in Bosnia and Kosovo? Or are we talking about the members of the military
community who noted the complete failure of the 'bombing alone' strategy
to dislodge federal troops from Kosovo until after they had achieved
their goal of cleansing Kosovo and complied with the mandate that they
retire north of the river.....
I feel for the young 'combat journalists' who now are obliged to do the
rounds to the Peace Keeping Missions in places like Bosnia, where they
suddenly notice that the process of doing Garrison Duty is only slightly
less boring than being Stuck at Fort Hood, Texas. WOW, I hope that news
flash in the Atlantic Monthly doesn't scare everyone. But please, sell me
the real alternative? We should not have become 'constructively engaged'
in the process? Or is this suppose to be more of the proof that the
Liberal Media is still covering up the Massive Ethnic Cleansing that
clearly has to be going on, since, well, there are american ground
troops there, and its not being covered? Or could it be that while its
not the best solution - even the great Military Hero, President Bush
the younger, in spite of his campaign speachifying, and campaign
promising, has opted to drop his core anti-war stance, and remains
unwilling to withdraw american ground troops? Since their presence
may just be able to help the transition back to the pluralist society
that Bosnia had been, where they frivilously wasted their days doing
literature, and art, rather than learning how to do sniper/anti-sniper
work and
entrenching, so that people could get to fresh water supplies during
a siege....
Maybe it is not the simpler matter of home ownership that complicates
the process of doing the analysis of how the world really works that
leads some to understand that it is not going to be a simple job to
disarm the world and end the wars.
As some will recall about the Rwandan Massacres - too many of those
murders were not even done without legitimate weapons of war, but the
old fashion way with machette like knives, and even rocks.
We still have all sorts of messes brewing in sub-saharan africa, some
of them traditional 'christian v. muslim' or the trilogy of 'christian
v. muslim v. animist', few of them the more traditional post-colonialist
struggle of the Progressivist Forces getting their weapons from the
soviet union to fight against the forces getting their weapons from the
USA - but have become the less clear power struggles of this group
against
that group, finding war the simpler path to power.
But I guess it would be impolite to remember that while the west sat,
the PLA trained forces from Tanzania ran their Op to oust Libyan Backed
Idi Amin out of Kenya. One of the myriad of little wars that folks tend
to not want to toss into the mix of which wars are good, which wars are
bad, and what standards we really want to raise for Real-Anti-War[tm]
that is the true heirs to the one correct implementation of the Authentic
Sixties Anti-War Movement.
Given the threat that the USA may wind up with semi-permenant bases in
uzbekistan, and tajikistan, at least for the time being, clearly we would
not wish to culturally destabilize those regions into believing that a
boring and stable government, without the corruption of 'drug money' as
the sole revenue stream, is a good goal to shoot for? And yes, getting
any Girg in Afghanistan to effectively work out an alternative path to
a compromise pluralistic government is OBVIOUSLY a bad goal.
So please, fill me in on what is the Correct Implementation of how to
deal with the Afghani Crisis?
ciao
drieux
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Nov 16 2001 - 18:36:09 EST