[Peace-discuss] WSWS: Trots Attack Other Trots on Drone Strikes

[David Johnson]

Here Here Carl,

We need a United Front against corporate power, not take delight in 
divisions that the ruling classes love.

David J.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: "Robert Naiman" <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
Cc: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 9:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] WSWS: Trots Attack Other Trots on Drone Strikes


Your Schadenfreude is misplaced. Disarray among those who should be opposing 
the child-killer is nothing to celebrate.

Even those of us who do not follow any species of vanguardism can see that 
Walsh is correct.

--CGE


On Feb 15, 2013, at 2:54 AM, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org> 
wrote:

>
> I *love* it when Trots attack other Trots! Where's the popcorn? Why don't 
> the Trots do this more often? I would pay for it. Think of all the young 
> people who would be spared wasting their lives in the various Trot cults. 
> When Trots attack other Trots, that's when Trots most show that the people 
> who wrote Monty Python's Life of Brian had experience with Trots.
> [....]
>
> The pseudo-left International Socialist Organization (ISO), as is the 
> group’s custom when it comes to taking a position on principled questions, 
> held off writing on the assassination memo as long as politically 
> feasible. In his February 12 piece, “Execution by Drone,” the ISO’s Eric 
> Ruder remarks, “The need for a probing assessment of the use of drones 
> couldn’t be more urgent.” So urgent that Socialistworker.org couldn’t get 
> to it for more than a week.
>
> The ISO essentially follows the Nation ’s lead, acting as an adjunct of 
> the Democrats. Like Mitchell, Ruder refers favorably to both the New York 
> Times’ editorial comments on the Justice Department memo (which include an 
> endorsement of Brennan for CIA director) and Sen. Wyden’s intervention.
>
> Socialistworker.org concludes that “we need real debate, not infomercials, 
> about the use of drones—and why we need to challenge the Obama 
> administration’s aggressive assertion of practically unlimited executive 
> powers to assassinate anyone, anywhere in the world.”
> Nothing about the danger of dictatorship, no call for an end to the 
> program, no exposure of the role of the Democrats at the Senate whitewash 
> of Brennan. Instead, this left appendage of American liberalism—and 
> American imperialism—contents itself with references to the 
> “administration’s contorted legal justifications,” the need for a “real 
> debate,” and a “challenge” to the White House.
>
> From the Nation and the ISO, complacent to the core and corrupted by the 
> selfish class interests of a privileged, well-off social layer, Obama, 
> Brennan and the rest of the conspirators against democratic rights have 
> nothing to fear.
>
> http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/13/nati-f13.html
>
> The Nation magazine and Obama’s assassination program
>
> By David Walsh
> 13 February 2013
>
> A secret US Justice Department memo came to light February 4 that asserted 
> the right of the president to order the assassination of perceived 
> enemies, including American citizens, anywhere on the globe, without due 
> process or the need to provide any evidence against the intended victims.
>
> On top of that, Barack Obama’s nominee for Central Intelligence Agency 
> director, John Brennan, refused at a Senate confirmation hearing last week 
> to rule out such extra-judicial killings on American soil.
>
> These developments represent an ominous warning to the American people 
> that elementary democratic rights are in grave danger.
>
> The overwhelming response of the liberal establishment and its 
> left-liberal and pseudo-socialist flank has been to downplay the 
> significance of the memo, lull the population to sleep in regard to its 
> dangers and, above all, express continued confidence in the Obama 
> administration and the Democratic Party.
>
> In general, the American media, liberal and otherwise, responded 
> indifferently or even sympathetically to the content of the Justice 
> Department memo. Illegal invasion, torture, assassination by drone 
> missile—this is now business as usual for these well-heeled defenders of 
> the existing order.
>
> The left-liberal Nation magazine has followed in the wake of the New York 
> Times and various Democratic Party figures, who have called for greater 
> “transparency” along with the creation of a secret court to rubber-stamp 
> the executions. The only perceptible difference between these circles and 
> the Nation is a sight increase in the nervousness of the latter’s tone.
>
> On February 6, the Nation’s Greg Mitchell (“Outrage Mounts in Media Over 
> Obama Drone ‘Kill Rules’”) informed his readers that since the leaking of 
> the memo, “the chorus of criticism—mainly from progressives and media 
> outlets long accused by conservatives of being ‘in the tank’ for Obama—has 
> grown to a deafening level.”
>
> Mitchell must have highly sensitive hearing. Given the nature of the 
> revelation, that the president of the United States has arrogated to 
> himself powers historically associated with fascist or military dictators, 
> the response has been remarkably muted.
>
> The approach of Mitchell and the Nation ’s other commentators is to offer 
> limited criticism of the Justice Department memo’s contents, and then 
> express satisfaction that a “debate” has now opened up as to whether the 
> US government has the right to murder American citizens and anyone else 
> without charging them of any crime.
>
> Thus Mitchell writes: “And although the memo only covered the 
> assassination/murder of Americans… it has sparked a long-overdue 
> reappraisal of the entire drone war, which has taken the lives of 
> thousands, including many non-combatants and children.”
>
> To gloss over the glaring internal contradiction of his position—criticism 
> of the assassination program, on the one hand, and support for the 
> administration that is carrying out that program, on the other—the Nation 
> columnist proceeds dishonestly, and demagogically. Mitchell assures us 
> that an “appraisal” of this illegal policy is coming—by whom, and with 
> what potential consequences?
>
> He continues, “This [the debate over the program] promises to get even 
> hotter tomorrow with the start of the congressional confirmation hearings 
> for drone champion (and keeper of the kill list) John Brennan as the new 
> CIA director.”
>
> There will, of course, be no official appraisal. Nor did things get 
> “hotter” during the Brennan hearing. Mitchell simply counts on his readers 
> not remembering from one day to the next what he has written.
>
> So, on February 8, Mitchell was compelled to admit (“As Brennan ‘Escapes,’ 
> Criticism of Media ‘Self-Censorship’ on Drone Program Grows”) that Brennan 
> had “escaped” the Senate hearing unscathed and that the aforementioned 
> “outraged” media, with the New York Times and Washington Post in the 
> forefront, had been guilty of “self-censorship,” having suppressed for 
> months “the existence of a US drone base in Saudi Arabia.”
>
> In his live blogging at the Brennan hearing, the Nation’s chief foreign 
> correspondent, Robert Dreyfuss, already on record as supporting the 
> would-be CIA director, made his position clear. After dismissing 
> anti-Brennan protests as “foolish and counterproductive,” Dreyfuss 
> observed that Obama’s nominee for the intelligence post “unlike General 
> [David] Petraeus, is a civilian, and that in itself is a step forward, 
> because the militarization of the CIA over several decades has unsettled 
> many analysts and intelligence professionals.”
>
> Dreyfuss unashamedly presents himself as an advisor to the White House on 
> what’s best for the CIA and a spokesman for disgruntled “analysts and 
> intelligence professionals,” and probably no one could improve on that 
> self-portrait.
>
> He concludes his blog by noting appreciatively, “Brennan says that he’d 
> always bring the truth to the White House, not tell the White House what 
> it wants to hear. (Unlike George W. Bush’s CIA directors, who shaped 
> intelligence according to the desires of the White House. Thus, Iraq.)”
>
> As usual, the most obtuse and brazen apologetics for Obama and the 
> Democrats in the Nation have been provided by leading columnist John 
> Nichols, who didn’t write about the issue until February 10, almost a week 
> after the memo became public (“Democrats Have a Unique Constitutional Duty 
> to Check, Balance the President”).
>
> Nichols is no opponent of drone warfare and assassination. In his article, 
> he identifies himself with Congressman John Conyers and (at the time) 
> Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who wrote a letter to the White House last 
> year opposing the expansion of the drone program, but who “were not 
> suggesting that the United States ought not defend itself.” They were 
> merely “demanding transparency, accountability and respect for the rule of 
> law.”
>
> This is the Nation’ s advice to Obama, the Pentagon and the CIA: kill 
> whomever you like, but put in place some legal fig leaf that will 
> legitimize the program and our own support for it.
> Nichols gives “high marks” to Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon “for 
> making the same demands for transparency from Democrat Barack Obama that 
> he would make of a Republican president. ‘Every American has the right to 
> know when their government believes it’s allowed to kill them.’” This, as 
> the WSWS has written, is a rather “truncated vision” of constitutional 
> rights.
>
> Like Mitchell, only more crudely, Nichols attempts to construct the case 
> for opposition to unlimited assassinations and ongoing support for Obama. 
> He writes, “There needs to be much broader recognition within the 
> president’s party that it is possible to respect Obama while at the same 
> time respecting the demands of a system where powers are appropriately 
> separated.” To underscore the point, he declares that congressional 
> critics of Obama “are not disrespecting the president. They are respecting 
> the Constitution.”
>
> There are two possible conclusions to draw. Either Nichols thinks it is 
> not especially noteworthy that the US president claims the power to order 
> the execution of anyone he pleases, and therefore the Nation columnist 
> doesn’t find it difficult to carry on backing him. Or Nichols recognizes 
> how grave an attack this is and is consciously lining up with the 
> systematic destruction of constitutional rights. Either scenario makes him 
> a scoundrel.
>
> Nowhere in any of the Nation’s commentary on the administration’s drone 
> and assassination program is there a call for a halt to the murderous and 
> illegal operation, or for the bringing of charges against Brennan and 
> other CIA and Pentagon officials. Nor is there any suggestion that Barack 
> Obama should be impeached for crimes that far surpass any committed by 
> Richard Nixon.
>
> In other words, talk here is terribly cheap, and the Nation, for all its 
> protestations, is glued to the Democratic Party and on board with US 
> imperialist policy. The magazine’s editors and columnists are not happy, 
> however, about the public exposure of the administration’s global 
> operations, as they energetically backed Obama’s reelection on the grounds 
> that it was the only possible choice for “progressives.”
>
> The pseudo-left International Socialist Organization (ISO), as is the 
> group’s custom when it comes to taking a position on principled questions, 
> held off writing on the assassination memo as long as politically 
> feasible. In his February 12 piece, “Execution by Drone,” the ISO’s Eric 
> Ruder remarks, “The need for a probing assessment of the use of drones 
> couldn’t be more urgent.” So urgent that Socialistworker.org couldn’t get 
> to it for more than a week.
>
> The ISO essentially follows the Nation ’s lead, acting as an adjunct of 
> the Democrats. Like Mitchell, Ruder refers favorably to both the New York 
> Times’ editorial comments on the Justice Department memo (which include an 
> endorsement of Brennan for CIA director) and Sen. Wyden’s intervention.
>
> Socialistworker.org concludes that “we need real debate, not infomercials, 
> about the use of drones—and why we need to challenge the Obama 
> administration’s aggressive assertion of practically unlimited executive 
> powers to assassinate anyone, anywhere in the world.”
> Nothing about the danger of dictatorship, no call for an end to the 
> program, no exposure of the role of the Democrats at the Senate whitewash 
> of Brennan. Instead, this left appendage of American liberalism—and 
> American imperialism—contents itself with references to the 
> “administration’s contorted legal justifications,” the need for a “real 
> debate,” and a “challenge” to the White House.
>
> From the Nation and the ISO, complacent to the core and corrupted by the 
> selfish class interests of a privileged, well-off social layer, Obama, 
> Brennan and the rest of the conspirators against democratic rights have 
> nothing to fear.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss


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