[Peace-discuss] Wallerstein on the war

Mon Aug 22 22:11:24 CDT 2005

Matt--

I think you're not being quite fair to Solomon.  I think your
animus against him for supporting "strategic voting" (which
people as different as I, Paul Mueth and Noam Chomsky also
supported) leads you to misconstrue his position as "one of
the most vocal apologists for the Democrats and their War
Party agenda."  Here he is arguing with someone who really
does fit that description, the awful Clintonoid Sidney Blumenthal:

 SOLOMON: ...Under Howard Dean, the Democratic Party in the
United States now has a pro-war position. Let me repeat that.
The Democratic Party has a pro-war position as the war in Iraq
continues. And so, how well-positioned is the Democratic Party
and its leadership, such as it is, to raise these issues about
lies on behalf of war and also raise these issues about the
meaningfulness of this war. When -- during the Vietnam War,
and I know Sid Blumenthal, as well as myself, were active in
writing about that war at the time, we had a situation where
there were many people in the Congress who had a similar
position to Howard Dean and most in the Democratic Party
leadership today on this war. During the Vietnam War, they
said, “Well, we can’t cut and run. We can't pull out.” That
was a pro-war position. And so what kind of political
discourse can we have about lies about a war that continues
right now? One other thing I'd like to mention. In 1968, as
previously, and I was able to hear this in person at a Senate
Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 1968, Senator Wayne
Morris, the senior Senator from Oregon, a Democrat said, and
I'm quoting here from transcript, “I do not intend to put the
blood of this war on my hands.” Here we are in the midst of
the Iraq war, and I am looking for one United States senator
willing to say that he or she is unwilling to put the blood of
this war on his or her hands. We don't have a single senator
today willing to say that...

<http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/15/1340214>

You may well be right that Wallerstein would accept Solomon's
argument here (I'll send you the Rich piece separately), but I
think that he'd be unhappy with your description of him as a
Marxist. A generation ago, when he began elaborating his
"world-systems theory," he meant it precisely as an
alternative to contemporary Marxist general histories, such as
those of Perry Anderson (PASSAGES FROM ANTIQUITY TO FEUDALISM;
LINEAGES OF THE ABSOLUTIST STATE -- which I still admire).

You're unfortunately right, tho' -- and Wallerstein and
Solomon (and I) would agree -- that "the goal of the American
imperial machine is to create an Iraqi state that functions as
a puppet of the American government." And, altho' we may
disagree over whether the system is capitalist in a way that
the old man in the British Museum would have understood it, we
would certainly agree that it's un-(indeed anti-)democratic. 
We would all also agree that "Bush and co [will] try to save
face, and that this saving of face [will] be bloody and wholly
immoral."

You differ with Solomon on the political and rhetorical
effect of asserting that the "war is lost." You think it "can
help win support over from centrist Americans, and eventually
succeed in making the war end immediately." Solomon (and I)
think the opposite, not least because the assertion isn't
true.  Remember that the US won the war in Vietnam, not in
that it achieved its maximum war aims, but rather its
fundamental one -- demonstrating that no third-world country
would be allowed to pursue independent political and economic
development without coordinating it with the US "over-all
frame-work of order."  (Vietnam now begs for Nike plants.)  

Finally, you're quite right that the proper demand is
immediate withdrawal, which Cindy Sheehan splendidly supports.
You and I do, too, and so does Norman Solomon.

Regards, Carl

---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 17:13:51 -0500
>From: "Matt Reichel" <mattreichel at hotmail.com>  
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Wallerstein on the war  
>To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>
>
>Suddenly Stormin' Norman is trying to give the Left a little
kick in the 
>rear?  This is the man who was one of the most vocal
apologists for the 
>Democrats and their War Party agenda throughout last year's
election --- and 
>hypocritically used smear tactics to keep people from voting
for one of the 
>anti-war presidential candidates.
>
>The piece below is not saying anything that Wallerstein would
deny (I 
>haven't read the Rich piece because my online NYTimes
subscription doesn't 
>allow access to the editorial page).
>Wallerstein is a fairly traditional Marxist thinker, who sees
imperialist 
>warfare by capitalist powers as a natural process. He
understands, thus, 
>that the goal of the American imperial machine is to create
an Iraqi state 
>that functions as a puppet of the American government: where
elctions are 
>merely a charade like they are at home, intended to mask the
inherently 
>un-democratic nature of capitalism. This will probably not be
accomplished 
>in Iraq.
>Meanwhile, the Sunni resistance will probably not be shut
down by the 
>American military, especially not in the face of increasing
distaste for the 
>war within the American public at large.
>
>Doesn't mean that Bush and co won't try to save face, and
that this saving 
>of face won't be bloody and wholly immoral.
>
>But I believe that the point is that making the argument that
the "war is 
>lost" can help win support over from centrists Americans, and
eventually 
>succeed in making the war end immediately.
>
>Cindy Sheehan supports an immediate withdrawal, and Immanuel
Wallerstein 
>almost certainly does.
>Norman Soloman, if one takes into consideration his love for
the Dems last 
>year, is not as moral as either of these two in this regard.
>
>Cheers,
>matt
>
>
>>From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>>To: Lisa Chason <chason at shout.net>,
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Wallerstein on the war
>>Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 14:46:43 -0500
>>
>>[Frank Rich made essentially the same argument in a NYT piece
>>a week ago Sunday, and he was criticized (I think, quite
>>properly) by Norman Solomon, as follows.  --CGE]
>>
>>
>>   Someone Tell Frank Rich the War Is Not Over
>>   By Norman Solomon, AlterNet
>>   Posted on August 16, 2005, Printed on August 22, 2005
>>   http://www.alternet.org/story/24144/
>>
>>On Sunday, the New York Times published a piece by Frank Rich
>>under the headline "Someone Tell the President the War Is
>>Over." The article was a flurry of well-placed jabs about the
>>Bush administration's lies and miscalculations for the Iraq
>>war. But the essay was also a big straw in liberal wind now
>>blowing toward dangerous conclusions.
>>
>>Comparing today's war-related poll numbers for George W. Bush
>>with those for President Lyndon B. Johnson, the columnist
>>writes: "On March 31, 1968, as LBJ's ratings plummeted
>>further, he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, commencing
>>our long extrication from that quagmire." And Rich extends his
>>Vietnam analogy: "What lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not
>>victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but
>>an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March
>>1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam."
>>
>>But Rich does not linger over the actual meaning of the "plan
>>for retreat" and the "long extrication" -- which meant five
>>more years of massive U.S. military assaults in Vietnam,
>>followed by two more years of military aid to the Saigon
>>government while fighting continued. The death toll during
>>that period in Vietnam? Tens of thousands of Americans,
>>perhaps a million Vietnamese people. That "extrication" was
>>more than merely "long."
>>
>>Rich's narrative does not just skitter past five years of
>>horrific carnage inflicted by the U.S. government in Vietnam
>>-- and elsewhere in Indochina -- after the spring of 1968. His
>>storyline is also, in its own way, a complacent message that
>>stands in sharp contrast to the real situation we now face: a
>>U.S. war on Iraq that may persist for a terribly long time.
>>For the Americans still in Iraq, and for the Iraqis still
>>caught in the crossfire of the occupation, the experiences
>>ahead will hardly be compatible with reassuring forecasts made
>>by pundits in the summer of 2005.
>>
>>Mocking President Bush's assertion on Aug. 11 that "no
>>decision has been made yet" about withdrawal of U.S. troops
>>from Iraq, Rich concludes: "The country has already made the
>>decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there."
>>
>>But of course Americans are not outta there. And President
>>Bush reasserted last Thursday that withdrawal of U.S. troops
>>is contingent on the U.S.-allied Iraqi forces achieving
>>standards of performance and self-sufficiency that are little
>>more than mirages.
>>
>>Yes, eventually, U.S. troops may leave Iraq. But, in the
>>summer of 2005, for commentators to declare the withdrawal of
>>U.S. troops from Washington's latest imperial war to be a
>>virtual fait accompli makes about as much sense as it would
>>have in the spring of 1968.
>>
>>Even after the commander in chief gives an order to begin
>>systematic withdrawal of U.S. troops -- and we're very far
>>from such a presidential order today -- there is likely to be
>>continuation of massive U.S. military actions in Iraq. And
>>even an actual sharp reduction of American troop levels on the
>>ground hardly ensures a drop-off of Pentagon-inflicted
>>violence. During the three years after July 1969, when
>>President Nixon announced that the burden of fighting
>>Communist forces would shift to Washington's South Vietnamese
>>ally, the White House cut U.S. troop levels in Vietnam by more
>>than 85 percent. During that same period, the tonnage rate of
>>U.S. bombs falling on Vietnam actually increased.
>>
>>Today, while the U.S. warfare in Iraq continues unabated, the
>>message that "we're outta there" is pernicious. It looks past
>>the ongoing need to demand complete U.S. withdrawal (if "we're
>>outta there," why bother to protest?) and stands aloof from
>>the very real political battles that will be fought to
>>determine just how long or short the bloody "extrication"
>>process will last.
>>
>>We're not "outta there" -- until an antiwar movement in the
>>United States can grow strong enough to make the demand stick.
>>And we're not there yet. Not by a long shot.
>>
>>Norman Solomon is the author of the new book "War Made Easy:
>>How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." For
>>information, go to: WarMadeEasy.com.
>>
>>� 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
>>View this story online at:
>>http://www.alternet.org/story/24144/
>>
>>---- Original message ----
>> >Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 14:38:26 -0500
>> >From: "Lisa Chason" <chason at shout.net>
>> >Subject: [Peace-discuss] Wallerstein on the war
>> >To: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>> >>
>> >>Commentary No. 167, August 15, 2005
>> >>
>> >>  "The U.S. Has Lost the Iraq War"
>> >>
>> >>  by Immanuel Wallerstein
>> >>                http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm
>> >> ...
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