Still, when the mainstream, capitalist media decided to make his victims more important than the victims in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and etc., my bullshit detector went off. It just had to be Qaddafi who the imperialists would stand up to, didn't it?
So, there was a UN resolution to approve the imposition of a no-fly zone to protect the civilians from being slaughtered and the scum-bags in NATO were going to impose it, and CNN and FUX News and our own craven CBC were going to glorify in it, and I could barely stomach the hypocrisy. At the exact same time, in the exact same world-historical wave of revolt, the US Fifth Fleet sat yards away as US ally Saudi Arabia's forces helped the corrupt, sectarian bigots of the US-allied Bahrain royal family slaughter their Shiite subjects who were protesting against institutional injustice, corruption, and dictatorship.
If there is a UN-imposed no-fly zone, let it be imposed by a UN authority. If it's a no-fly zone mandate, then keep it a no-fly zone mission. Protect those people. But don't give NATO another opportunity for self-aggrandizement. Don't give those psychopathic motherfuckers another chance to legitimize their imperialist interference in other countries. Especially when it's so
obviously, blatantly hypocritical. Qaddafi is being punished for his independence, not for his crimes.Which brings us to the NDP. It ain't rocket-science people! It's a no-fly zone to protect civilians, not a regime-change mandate. By voting for regime-change, you have committed Canada to another idiotic war, to impose (no doubt) a government of scum-bags, a-la Afghanistan and Haiti. (Given that you even have the luxury of your disagreement not counting for shit anyway, I don't see what you hope to accomplish with this bit of brain-dead war mongering. Unless losing your Quebec support is your main goal.)
Congratulations shit-heads.
11 comments:
NDP's current positions on foreign policy could have been written by Ignatieff. Pretty freaking pathetic.
Thwap said:
"don't give NATO another opportunity for self-aggrandizement. Don't give those psychopathic motherfuckers another chance to legitimize their imperialist interference in other countries."
This is a rather poor reason to protest against the getting rid of a bourgeois dictator.
While it's more than likely the revolutionaries will end up putting their necks under the yokes of the IMF and other institutions of bourgeois enforcement, a more personal form of dictatorship will have been removed, which is a historical plus.
"Especially when it's so obviously, blatantly hypocritical. Qaddafi is being punished for his independence, not for his crimes."
_What_ independence? For at least the past eight years, Libya has been getting more and more linked into global capital. He's a big pal of Berlusconi for policing outside the bounds of Fortress Euro-Whitey against the Black Hordes. He's also been helping the US against al-Quaeda and "al-Quaeda" in North Africa.
The volte face towards Quaddafi's the attempt by the West to capitalize on the same Arab Spring feelings that fucked it over in Egypt (and is still getting worked through in Syria, et al).
Todd,
I'm not protesting against the attack on Qaddafi.
I'm protesting NATO's imperialism.
As to his independence, Wikileaks cables show that oil companies were complaining about his escalating royalty demands and his efforts to have them partner with domestic firms as a prerequisite to doing business in Libya.
He demonstrated independence in the past and that's reason enough for the imperialists to loath him forever.
I think there's more harm to be done by allowing this NATO imperialism and their cynical manipulation of [most of] the world's sympathies for the "Arab Spring" than there is to allow Qaddafi to totter on his own.
When you write stuff like:
"I'm not protesting against the attack on Qaddafi.
I'm protesting NATO's imperialism."
and
"By voting for regime-change, you have committed Canada to another idiotic war, to impose (no doubt) a government of scum-bags, a-la Afghanistan and Haiti."
it's _very_ hard to see any kind of nuance.
Are you sure you're not following behind Murray Dobbin's asinine anti-imperialist stance on Libya?
http://murraydobbin.ca/2011/05/10/will-libyans-see-us-as-saviours/
"Wikileaks cables show that oil companies were complaining"
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/what-5-years-of-lexis-nexis-reveals-about-libya-and-the-west/
Read this:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/barry-sheppard-libya-imperialism-and-alba/
(Proyect didn't write it; it's from Sheppard.)
Todd,
I can assure you that I've come to my asinine opinions all on my own.
But having now read Dobbins' piece I can't find much wrong with it.
It seems to make much more sense than believing that NATO can be a tool for national liberation.
re:
"I'm not protesting against the attack on Qaddafi.
I'm protesting NATO's imperialism."
"By voting for regime-change, you have committed Canada to another idiotic war, to impose (no doubt) a government of scum-bags, a-la Afghanistan and Haiti."
I don't see how my quotes can lead to any sort of confusion for you.
I honestly don't care about Qaddafi. I just don't want NATO to have anything to do with his downfall because this whole exercise is yet one of many they are using to justify their imperialist interventions in other countries.
And, furthermore, my reluctance to cheer-lead a NATO-led regime change in Libya has nothing whatsoever to do with admiration for Qaddafi or concern for his well-being.
NATO-led regime change will mean a disastrous NATO-led regime.
If Qaddafi is going to fall, let it be at the hands of the Libyan people. Not NATO.
Regarding the Sheppard piece, he, like you, appears to underestimate the dangers of NATO's co-opting the "Arab Spring." (which, btw. is being successfully ground-down by US puppets, including in Egypt where the US-loyal military is now harassing and torturing dissidents, as well as in Israel, where the screeching of the ruling classes [as Sheppard describes them] are being matched with intensification of the brutalization of the Palestinians. The NATO attack is all of a piece with this destruction of the "Arab Spring.")
I think the perfect snap-shot of his confusion is in his concluding cheers:
"In defense of the Great Arab Uprising!
No to all forms of imperialist intervention!
Fight the imperialist war!"
Says Sheppard in defence of NATO's imperialism.
Saying that Qaddafi's cooperation with the West invalidates his independence is ludicrous once we remember how much Saddam Hussein was demonized even though he'd moved to become the USA's right-hand to replace the Shah and his great sin, the invasion of Kuwait, was done after he'd received the US Ambassador's note of indifference to his proposal.
And speck of independence is frowned upon by these imperialist psychopaths.
My point is that a knee-jerk protest against NATO simply because it is normally used as a tool of imperialism and, from the point of view of its leaders, is being used this way now, is in fact a protest in favour of Quaddafi.
If Quaddafi were in fact an actual anti-imperialist or NATO had simply invaded Libya on the business of regime change without there being an obvious revolution going on, a simple anti-imperialist stance in this instance would have been much more valid.
As it was, a revolution had started and Quaddafi had apparently been on the verge of crushing it when NATO attacked, ostensibly to protect the revolutionaries. That a tool of reaction had been used apparently in favour of revolutionaries doesn't change the fact that both sides want basically the same thing: Quaddafi out of power and replaced by a democratically elected government (most likely a bourgeois one, given what the MSM has told us about the revolutionary leadership, which they like). Call off the dogs now and Quaddafi will start a bloodbath and make even more certain to secure his position.
It's a good thing that a bourgeois dictator like Quaddafi is kicked out, even if an imperialist aggressor is the one doing it. That said, it's correct to protest NATO's bombing of civilian targets in Libya and any lies it generates in the process of the assault.
A good socialist cannot simply brew up all conditions of a revolution in his/her own head and only cheer when those conditions only are met; one has to examine each revolutionary situation independantly of the other. In this situation, a real, bona-fide revolution is taking place in Libya: the replacement of dictatorship with democracy of some kind. That's what we have to cheer for because it's worth cheering for, even if NATO later turns around and helps the more conservative elements in the revolution smother the more radical elements. We have to have some hope that something we want will come out of this; cynicism will simply lead to apathy and silence.
"Saying that Qaddafi's cooperation with the West invalidates his independence is ludicrous"
A house slave can be praised one minute then turned on and whipped the next if that's in master's best interests.
"But having now read Dobbins' piece I can't find much wrong with it."
Dobbins swallows the stalinist line that Libya was some kind paradise because they had free healthcare, etc, ignoring the reality of living in a dictatorship.
"I don't see how my quotes can lead to any sort of confusion for you."
The people who got into power in Iraq and Haiti did not start a revolution to get there; the revolutionaries in Libya did. That's a big difference that really shouldn't be elided.
"I just don't want NATO to have anything to do with his downfall because this whole exercise is yet one of many they are using"
Like I said above: what you want doesn't matter. Especially to the revolutionaries in Libya. We have to look at what's being done and go from there.
Todd,
You're tying yourself in knots to defend the indefensible.
Right off the bat, Dobbin isn't saying that Libya is a paradise. I think he's sensibly listing the material conditions that we can be certain that US puppets are going to be pressured to dismantle almost in its entirety.
As for the democracy that you imagine will arise because this is part of the Arab Revolution, ... you seem to forget that NATO will be involved and that the democracy in post-Qaddafi Libya will be similar to that of the democracy in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Haiti.
Qaddafi might very well have crushed that uprising without NATO's intervention.
Which would have been a tragedy.
But now that NATO's involved, the tragedy has been postponed. It will be NATO that kills it.
I suppose my rejection of NATO is knee-jerk. But my blanket condemnation and rejection of every NATO adventure stems from the debacle of Afghanistan. I was prepared to eat crow if we'd done some good there. But it turns out; thanks to the monstrosity of our leaders, that i don't have to.
"You're tying yourself in knots to defend the indefensible."
The indefensible? I'm not the one calling for the imperialists to get out of the way and allow the local dictator to slaughter the revolutionaries so he can stay in power for another 40 years (and liberalize the country's economy to boot).
"But my blanket condemnation and rejection of every NATO adventure stems from the debacle of Afghanistan."
This isn't Afghanistan. Canada isn't there to prop someone up. It's not there out of the goodness of our government's heart, either. But it is , despite itself, helping a local revolution that will be democratic (instead of the dictatorship that exists now) and _might_ be something more. We have to give it that chance instead of sneering cynically. If the bourgeois countries involved do smother any kind of (radical) revolution, that's one more reason to hate them, not call ourselves fools for hoping and sink back into more cynicism.
Give war a chance 'eh?
I must say, I find it rich that after the numerous times you've tried to puncture one of my self-righteous, indignant tirades, by explaining that the outrages I was responding to were everyday bourgeois politics, that you're now criticizing me for sinking into cynicism.
There's nothing my opinion can do for the Libyans, one way or the other, so tell you what:
I believe that NATO befouls everything it touches and that this adventure (which would continue even if 75% of the population were to be against it regardless) is going to end in misery.
You believe that NATO will end up producing a better result, if for the wrong reason.
But if you're wrong, you'll just have been another of the people taken for a ride by yet another version of the "R2P" or "humanitarian intervention."
If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong.
"Give war a chance 'eh?"
Oh, please! If that were my stance, don't you think I would've trotted out the same argument for Iraq and Afghanistan?! You've read me before, Thwap; I would've hoped you could make distinctions.
"I believe that NATO befouls everything it touches"
Drop the essentialism before it kills you.
"You believe that NATO will end up producing a better result"
Did I say will? No.
"But if you're wrong, you'll just have been another of the people taken for a ride"
I'm sure you'd like to think that.
I'd absolve you, by your own lights, of producing something besides a reflex.
Post a Comment