[Peace-discuss] Belden’s support for US killing in Iraq & Syria, because ISIS...

[C. G. Estabrook]

“I know we should oppose imperialist military actions, but this case is different!”

How often have we heard that from American liberals and soi-disant leftists in our lifetime? Korea, Iran, Egypt, Vietnam, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya - now perhaps Iran and even Russia? Each case (usually described as a matter of stopping genocide) has meant that those the late Alex Cockburn called “lap-top bombardiers” have been ready to endorse more killing by the American executive: 

http://articles.latimes.com/1994-05-10/local/me-55789_1_laptop-bombardiers
http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/03/24/where-are-the-laptop-bombardiers-now/

But it’s not just a recent wheeze. In the midst of WWI, James Connolly - a real socialist - pointed out that “One great source of the strength of the ruling class has ever been their willingness to kill in defence of their power and privileges. Let their power be once attacked either by foreign foes, or domestic revolutionists, and at once we see the rulers prepared to kill, and kill, and kill. The readiness of the ruling class to order killing, the small value the ruling class has ever set upon human life, is in marked contrast to the reluctance of all revolutionists to shed blood.” 

I wish Belden would show that reluctance, rather than nod in approval while Obama becomes the the fourth US president in a row to bomb Iraq. (We should hardly be surprised, when we note that Obama continues to kill thousands - including hundreds of children - with drones in “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times.”)

In our lifetime the US executive has been responsible for killing, wounding, and making homeless well over 20 million human beings, mostly civilians, and the real motive has consistently been the profits of the 1%, especially via control of Mideast energy resources. 

The propaganda cover, however, has frequently been genocide, since the term was invented by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. Clinton’s illegal attack on Serbia in 1999, which Belden praises, was transparently in the service of the US 1% - and, as David Johnson indicated,  “the real purpose of the war had nothing to do with concern for Kosovar Albanians: it was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated itself to the US-run neoliberal programs.” But it was justified, quite falsely, by Clinton and American liberals, as “preventing genocide in Kosovo.”

Cockburn wrote eight years ago, “Post coldwar Liberal interventionism came of age with the onslaught on Serbia. Liberal support for the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq were the afterglows. Now that night has descended and illusions about the great crusade shattered for ever, let us tip our hats to those who opposed this war from the start ­- the real left, the libertarians and those without illusions about the ‘civilizing mission’ of the great powers.”

Nevertheless Belden avers, “If the only force that can counter that of genocidal fanatics is a force that has often been used in human rights violations in the past,  I am willing to accept that.” (Isn’t that a version of the argument made at the time by some Western liberals for Operation Barbarossa?) Today, Belden implies that the force he has in mind is once again the US military, and the genocidal fanatics of the moment are ISIS.

Given the number of deaths in Vietnam and Iraq alone, one might note that the leading “genocidal fanatics” in our lifetime have been the US military, although as Nick Turse’ recent book (“Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam,” 2013) makes clear, we’ve managed to hide it from ourselves for two generations. 

Belden argues that insisting that the Obama administration follow international law, notably the UN Charter, is “not realistic for two reasons.  First because of the conflicting interests on the Council and the veto power that each member state has.  Second ... even where there is enough agreement in the UN to place a force on the ground, that force is small...” 

What that argument amounts to is the assertion that the US must act alone because it cannot be sure that the Security Council will endorse American imperial military attacks. True enough: that’s why Clinton didn’t observe international law in attacking Serbia or Bush and Obama in attacking Afghanistan and Iraq. But their crimes do not authorize new crimes today.

It is not an argument for America’s ignoring of international law to say that the Security Council might not kill the people that America wants killed, either in Yugoslavia or the Mideast. With Germany and Japan as recent examples, it was precisely so that other countries might check imperial expansion in Europe and Asia that the Security Council was established in 1945. That is indeed “not realistic” for American military action in SW Asia (or elsewhere), as Belden says. That's why, for the past 30 years, the US is far in the lead in vetoing Security Council Resolutions (Britain second, France a distant third).

One needn’t have any illusions about ISIS (the best account is the new book by Alex Cockburn’s brother Patrick, “The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution” [Verso 2015]) to understand and be concerned about the killing that the government for which we are supposedly responsible is doing. Insofar as ISIS poses a general international threat, it is precisely a matter for the UNSC as the “executive committee of the [international] bourgeoisie,” concerned with the flourishing of all bourgeois states and not just the imperialist advance of one. 

Regards, CGE


PS - I apparently failed to make myself clear to Belden regarding Boko Haram, which he insists he condemns (as do I).  I asked rhetorically why the US was bombing Iraq (ISIS) but not Nigeria (Boko Haram), or Xinjiang (Uyghurs), given the similarity of the jihadists in all three. The obvious answer is that, of the three, only ISIS currently threatens US hegemony over oil (although Boko Haram one day might).

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On Feb 17, 2015, at 12:15 PM, 'Fields, A Belden' a-fields at illinois.edu [sf-core] <sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> First, I repeat that I fully agree that corporate interests have long been behind major US foreign policy moves.
> I also agree that those interests do not  align with the interestsof the majority of American or  people of the world. 
> In addition, I would agree that  US policies int eh Middle East, from the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Iran in 1953, through the one-sided approach to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, to the disastrous invasion of Iraq have provided fertile ground for ISIS.
> 
> BUT, I do not take the position that corporate capitalism is the only evil in the world.  Fo me genocide, the killing, torturing, or enslaving of people (I  am aware that there is a broader definition in the UN Convention) just because of  who they are is a greater evil than of corporate capitalism.  While some Marxists do regard human rights as just a liberal mask for advancing the goals of capitalism and imperialism, I do not.  I take them seriously, and I regard genocide (which includes slavery of specific peoples) as the worst.  If the only force that can counter that of genocidal fanatics is a force that has often been used in human rights violations int he past,  I am willing to accept that--with the knowledge that ISIS is not  going to be defeated by military force alone.  ISIS was not just produced by Western imperialism, but also by poverty and lack of opportunity and development in most of the countries in North Africa and the Middle East, by repression in most of those countries, by religious conflict within Islam and between Islam and other religions.  Not all of  this can be ascribed to the capitalist West.
> 
> While I would much prefer a situation in which the UN Security Council could deal with ISIS as Carl suggests, that is simply not realistic for two reasons.  First because of the conflicting interests on the Council and the veto power that each member state has.  Second, and why I cited Yugoslavia as a case where I supported the Clinton-NATO military action to break the siege  of Sarajevo, the multi-national and multi-ethnic city against which the Serbs were using heavy heavy weaponry and snipers to kill civilians.  The Russians, with veto power in the Security Council, would never have approved of action the Serbian.  Where the UN did act, in placing a peace keeping force in Bosnia, that force was incapable of doing anything to protect the 8,000 Muslim male Bosnians from being rounded up and slaughtered by a Serbian force.   So, even where there is enough agreement in the UN to place a force on the ground, that force is small and incapable of countering well-armed and very aggressive forces like the Serbs let loose in Kosovo or ISIS.  I really wish that the UN had such a force and that there was sufficient agreement within the UN on when and how to counter atrocious human rights violations, but the reality is that this does not exist.  So my wishing, and Carl's proposing, doesn't really amount to much when facing a fanatic genocidal force like ISIS.
> 
> In regard to Carl's saying that Ido not condemn Boko Haram, he is wrong.  My article responded to another article that dealt exclusively with the US and ISIS.  I just as strongly oppose Boko Haram, and I support the US's government's attempt to help the Nigerian government with whatever intelligence or military assistance it can.
> I do not favor the US going in lots of ground troops, just as I don't favor that in Iraq.  I think that it is good that Chad, Cameroon, and Niger are now committing troops to the fight against ISIS. 
> 
> I hope that this  adds some clarity to my  thinking.  I do think that democratic socialists, while condemning corporate capitalism, need to understand that it it not the only, nor the most egregious, evil that people are capable in a world in which we have also experienced brutal military dictatorship, totalitarianism (sometimes masquerading under the name of socialism), and genocide.
> __,_._,___